The FCFA Currency: An Eminently Linguistic Issue

Abstract

In a situation of illiteracy at a rate of 54%, with over 80% of the population not speaking French (ANSD, 2013), it is very difficult to carry out effective development policies in Senegal without taking into account the language issue. From this point of view, the FCFA currency, which is expressed in French, poses a lot of problems for the African populations of the franc zone. The debate around this currency has so far been more focused on financial or fiduciary aspects than on the fundamental mechanisms that help to better understand the environment in which economic agents operate. Beyond its linguistic symbolism steeped in history, the FCFA creates cognitive problems that make it difficult for African populations to use it. We will try in this article to show, by an analytical approach, that the denomination of a currency involves the interaction of several fields of investigation. These are economic, historical, sociological, political, and above all, linguistic. From this angle, there is reason to be interested in the Academy of African Languages (ACALAN) in the resolution of this unit of measurement.