The Cultural and Linguistic Divide
One thing impeding our advancement on the continent, in my humble opinion, is the great “cultural divide”.
When culture is “problematic”
Our beautiful continent is simultaneously aided and disadvantaged by its cultural diversity. In a country like Zambia (my country), which has a population of approximately 18 million people, one can find as many as 72 different languages/dialects – each associated with a unique “culture”. In and of itself, this is not problematic. In Zambia, it is less of an issue than in other African countries, because it only has one official language of commerce (English). In other jurisdictions, however, like South Africa, there are 11 OFFICIAL languages.
While this is great for “ubuntu” this is arguably not very efficient nor facilitative of business. Any business, in order to make itself relevant to the ENTIRE market, must first translate its marketing material/adverts/etc. 10 times or risk foregoing several million customers/consumers (per language). This is a cost that an SME or start-up simply may not be able to afford. As a result they lose much of the margin associated with “novelty” or “hype”. By the time they “get around” to making the service/product available in another/all the other languages some time has usually lapsed since the initial “launch” or entry into the market. And what has been lost in “novelty” has to be paid for in cash.
A country like the United States of America with its almost 330 million inhabitants has no such handicap. Even though there are many different ethnicities and cultures in the US as well, there is ONE official language (like in Zambia). Where the US differs from Zambia however, is that practically EVERYONE understands and speaks the primary language. The accents may vary, but its still the same language even though it’s hard to tell sometimes 😂.
By comparison, in Zambia, there are still pockets of Rural areas (albeit very few now) where certain people (usually older folks) don’t speak English at all. If they do, it’s the “basics only” and therefore certain witty nuances in adverts or marketing material would be lost on them.
These are the “soft” challenges resulting from the cultural/linguistic divide. The “hard” ones relate to super-intolerance to the point of war and genocide and in that context – forget cross-cultural business…
What to do?
I am not anti-culture, because it makes our continent the delight it is… However, we need to become acutely aware of the costs associated with multiple official languages to the taxpayer. EVERY single piece of legislation, in order to be understood, needs to be translated into EVERY official language which costs [plenty] time and money. In an environment where a smaller number taxpayers supports a larger number of non-payers this seems disingenuous. The resources are already insufficient to support governmental programs. Perhaps the time has come for our African governments to take some tough decisions. Can we choose one language and still celebrate our uniqueness and cultural diversity or does that constitute “selling out”?
What it means for a start-up is that your market analysis needs to be “on point”, as they say. If you find yourself in a multilingual, multicultural environment, you might need to spend a little more to get your market research absolutely spot on. For example, if you only have a limited budget for marketing at the beginning, you may need to launch your product(s) in a language that is foreign to you personally. The research numbers and cost-benefit analysis should guide you, not sentiment. After all, you already buy your own product. The point is to get your target market to buy it as well.
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