Thirty Years After the First National Conference on Eritrean Languages

Et bilde som inneholder Menneskeansikt, person, klær, glass

KI-generert innhold kan være feil. Language, Education, and the Blin Experience, 1996–2026

Kiflemariam Hamde

30th-anniversary retrospective • 18 August 2026

Introduction: Returning to Asmara, August 1996

From 16 to 18 August 1996, participants gathered in Asmara for the First National Conference on Eritrean Languages. The conference brought together people concerned with Eritrea’s languages, education, culture, language planning, and social development. Papers were presented in general and parallel sessions, and the conference took place during the early years of independence, when language and education were being discussed as part of the larger project of national reconstruction.¹

I participated not simply as an observer but as a presenter and session participant. I presented a paper entitled “ተራ ቋንቋ ኣብ ሕብረተሰብኣዊ ምዕብልና” The Role of Language in Social Development.” I also chaired one parallel session and served as secretary in another. Ibrahim Totil chaired the session in which I presented my paper. These details, together with the recollections that follow concerning the organization and atmosphere of the conference, are participant recollections and should be distinguished from claims established directly by surviving documentary records.

As I remember it, the general conference was convened under Abdalla Jaber of the PFDJ and Osman Salih, the newly appointed Minister of Education. Parallel sessions had their own chairs and secretaries, while participants were at times brought together again so that discussions taking place in different sessions could be shared more widely. About thirty participants came from Zoba Anseba, led by Habteab Kifleyesus, then working with the PFDJ/Higdef. Approximately forty papers were associated with the conference, although some submitted papers were not actually presented. The final evening included a conference dinner and musical celebration.

These human details matter. The conference was not simply a set of policy papers. Speakers of different Eritrean languages met, argued, listened to one another, and considered the place of language in the new state. A general discussion also selected or elected a three-person board to prepare a draft for a future Language and Culture Forum or similar body that could plan and invite future conferences. Thirty years later, I remember two of the members: the late Dr Idris Abaq, who came from Paris, and Ghirmai Negash of Leiden University. I do not at present know what became of that initiative.

Thirty years later, I return to the conference not merely to commemorate it, but to compare aspirations with outcomes, principles with implementation, and language policy with the lived experience of speakers.