Côte d'Ivoire

The French spoken in Côte d’Ivoire has taken on a certain autonomy from the international standard of French. This current movement is determined by several factors, including historical and current contacts with Ivorian languages, the early diffusion of French outside formal places, and the appropriation of French by the entire population in the postcolonial period. This led first to the emergence of a national reference variety in the process of becoming the Ivorian standard, then to the appearance of Nouchi as the language of young people, and finally to its rapid expansion in society as a new mixed urban language. In this chapter, we approach the history and the sociolinguistic context of the evolution of French in this country, not to show its singularity, as this evolution could well occur in other African countries too.