Introduction

Out of nearly 2,000 languages spoken in Africa, UNESCO estimates that about one third are currently threatened with extinction during this century. San, the language of the Samo people in West Africa, is among those whose survival now depends on a single generation. In thirty to forty years, if the current trend continues, San will no longer be the mother tongue of most children born to Samo parents.

Discovering the Samo People

The Samo, also known as Sanan or Samogho, are a Mandé people descended from the historical expansion of the Mandé Empire. They mainly inhabit the Mouhoun Loop in northwestern Burkina Faso, as well as parts of southeastern Mali and northern Côte d’Ivoire. Their language includes several variants belonging to the Mandé language family and carries an oral tradition documented since the 1960s. Today, how many young Samo still understand the meaning of their own family names?

Why Is San Declining?

The process behind this disappearance is well known. Samo parents, especially those living in urban areas or abroad, are no longer passing San on to their children. These children grow up speaking French, Dioula, or Moré instead. According to linguists, the absence of family transmission is the leading cause of language extinction worldwide, ahead of repression or the physical disappearance of speakers. A language rarely dies because of an external enemy. It dies through the choices of the very people who carry it. Several other factors reinforce this decline. San remains absent from school curricula, depriving it of any formal framework for recognition and promotion. Urban migration imposes the dominant language of the host environment. Some parents also view local languages as less useful than international languages for their children’s success; perception sociolinguists describe as linguistic insecurity.

The Consequences of Linguistic Rupture

The consequences go far beyond language itself. A language carries stories, proverbs, worldviews, and ritual practices. San preserves the tolo, an annual celebration dedicated to ancestors, as well as Samo ritual masks and the original meanings of the people’s surnames. If the chain of transmission is broken, these elements filled with history and cultural memory could disappear within a single generation, without archives and with no possibility of recovery.

Conclusion

Some initiatives already exist. Linguists established a written orthography for San in the 1980s, and artists continue to promote the language through music. Yet none of these efforts can replace the essential act that determines whether a language survives: a parent speaking it to a child. The future of San is now decided inside Samo households and nowhere else. The question is not whether the language deserves to be preserved. Every language does, and San holds a heritage humanity will never be able to recreate once it is lost. The real question is whether the current generation of Samo parents will choose to transmit their language or allow it to fade away in silence.