It's a snowy morning outside Van Hise Hall on UW-Madison's campus, but seven students file into a classroom and shed their winter coats.
They're here to learn Yoruba, a west African language spoken by 45 million people in parts of Nigeria, Benin and Togo. Today, they're taking a midterm exam that focuses on their reading and writing skills.
"Àkókò ku ìséjú méèdògún," instructor Saheed Isola Ganiyu writes on the whiteboard. That means "15 minutes left."
This class is small, but it's part of a department at UW-Madison that teaches around seven languages originating on the African continent. Around 100 students are enrolled across the different languages.
Eighty miles east of Madison in Milwaukee, college students don’t have a lot of options when it comes to studying African languages.
A listener wrote into WUWM’s Beats Me series to ask why that is.
Scholars of African studies say that schools of all levels have long prioritized European languages when selecting programs. Of all the estimated 3,000 languages spoken on the African continent, Marquette and UW-Milwaukee only offer one: Arabic.
“A lot of the students who are here who would be interested in those languages, do not have the opportunity to learn them," according to Chima Korieh, a professor of African and African Diaspora History at Marquette.
He says decisions by universities about whether to offer languages come down to dollars and cents.
“You have to also appreciate what universities prioritize in terms of resources and in terms of what they think is important for the students in these institutions," Korieh says. "But as an Africanist, I see language as a very important and critical aspect of life.”
Korieh explains that most Marquette students in the Africana Studies department are preparing for careers working in African countries or with African partners, such as in government or NGO work. A smaller number of students are members of the African diaspora and looking to learn more about their family’s country of origin.
The last few decades in higher education have seen an intense and well-documented shift toward STEM. Careers in engineering, science and technology promise high availability and oftentimes, high pay.
Jeffrey Sommers is with UW-Milwaukee’s African and African Diaspora Studies department. He said in an email that amid UWM’s budget fluctuations “humanities, where languages are embedded, have taken the largest cuts.”
UW-Madison teaches African languages, but faces federal funding cuts
In Madison's African languages program, students have the opportunity to learn Arabic, Yoruba, Swahili, Zulu, Wolof, Akan Twi and Hausa. Not all languages are offered every semester, according to program director Adeola Agoke.
The university also participates in the Big Ten Academic Alliance cost share program, which allows students to take virtual classes in languages like Somali that are taught at other Big Ten schools. One student in the Yoruba class at UW-Madison actually lives in Minnesota.
Agoke says there are around 100 students throughout the department. She adds that learning a culture without having a basic understanding of its language is a hindrance to both a student and university’s research capabilities.
“Language learning is really critical to not just the research, not just the career, but thinking of holistic learning in itself. And so, yeah, any serious institution will take language learning seriously.”
Last year, the Trump administration cut funding for some Title VI programs that were established during the Cold War and focus on foreign language and international studies. Madison’s program lost a grant of about $250,000, which it was using to run its African Studies Center. The center hosted African community story hours and brought in visiting scholars for conferences.
Luis Madureira the chair of Madison’s department of African Cultural Studies.
“We were talking about the languages that are less commonly taught, like Zulu or Wolof, we can't offer them on a regular basis because we don't have the personnel. So what this funding allowed us to do is to bring instructors fluent in those languages that were able to teach," he says. "For the most part, it's a small number of students, right? But those who are interested were able to be instructed in those languages. And that funding has been completely cut.”
Milwaukee Islamic Center plans to launch language program in 2027 to help young people 'reconnect with West African heritage'
In Milwaukee, the lack of African languages taught on college campuses isn’t stopping community members from taking matters into their own hands.
Mohamed Camàra is the imam at the Islamic Dawah Center on Milwaukee’s northwest side. He’s working on launching a Mandinka language program to help young people reconnect with their West African heritage language. He says many Milwaukee families have moved from Liberia, Guinea, Mali, and The Gambia and stopped speaking Mandinka.
“In some families, they speak it with their children, but in the vast majority, they don't," he says. "It creates a demand for having something like this where the kids can formally actually learn the language, instead of just a few words that they pick up from hearing their parents speak at home.”
I asked Camàra when he’s planning to have the Mandinka program off the ground.
“I'm hoping for a launch actually next February, next Black History Month. I think that would be an excellent time to start it," he says.
WUWM is a service of UW-Milwaukee.
This story is part of our Beats Me series, where listeners can ask our WUWM beat reporters questions about education, race and ethnicity and the environment.
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