The Evolution of French Goes Through Africa

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — French, by most estimates the world’s fifth most spoken language, is changing — perhaps not in the gilded hallways of the institution in Paris that publishes its official dictionary, but on a rooftop in Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast.

- ELIAN PELTIER

There one afternoon, a 19-year-old rapper with the stage name Marla rehearsed, surrounded by friends. Her words were mostly French, but the Ivorian slang and English words that she mixed in made a new language. To speak only French, “c’est zogo” — “it’s uncool,” said Marla, whose real name is Mariam Dosso, combining a French word with Ivorian slang. But playing with words and languages, she said, is “choco,” an abbreviation for chocolate meaning “sweet” or “stylish.”

A growing number of words and expressions from Africa are now infusing the French language, spurred by booming populations of young people in West and Central Africa.

More than 60 percent of those who speak French daily live in Africa, where the youth population is surging. Above, Jean Patrick Niambé, known as Dofy, recording in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Top, on a beach in Senegal.

More than 60 percent of those who speak French daily now live in Africa, and 80 percent of children studying in French are in Africa. There are as many French speakers in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as in Paris. Through platforms like TikTok and YouTube, they are literally spreading the word, reshaping the French language from African countries that were once colonized by France.

“We’ve tried to rap in pure French, but nobody was listening to us,” said Jean Patrick Niambé, known as Dofy, a 24-year-old Ivorian hip-hop artist listening to Marla on the rooftop. “So we create words from our own realities, and then they spread.”