LOTE in academic journals: a scoping review of selected African databases

Abstract

The challenge of ‘linguistic imperialism’ prevails in Africa, perhaps to a greater extent than in other non-Anglophone areas, because African countries are often plurilingual and pluricultural. By default and design, English becomes a lingua franca. This scoping review investigates the use of languages other than English in open-access academic publications originating from Africa. The review quantifies the use of African languages in academic publications from 2010 to 2020. Four African databases are surveyed: African Index Medicus, African Journal Archive, African Journals Online and SABINET Open Access. A total of 670 journals were scoped. This article finds that only fifty-seven journals allow publication in languages other than English. From these journals, between 2010 and 2020, only twenty-six articles appeared in an African language. The Google Scholar site reports the highest citation for articles written in the aforementioned African languages is one.