Das Phänomen der Vokaldehnung im Deutschen und Wolof: Eine neue Perspektive in der Vermittlung der deutschen Vokale im DaF-Unterricht im Senegal

The phenomenon of vowel length in German has been studied from a new contrastive perspective, taking Wolof as the starting language, in contrast to the method found in German textbooks in Senegal, which advocates learning only German. On many levels, the vowel systems of German and Wolof resemble each other, despite the great difference in genealogy between the two languages. These similarities are not often taken into account in the teaching of German as a foreign language in Senegal, which can sometimes be an obstacle, because the French language, often taken as a starting language, differs much more from German than Wolof in many linguistic aspects, such as the phenomenon of vowel length. On the other hand, other aspects that could handicap the teaching of vowel length are highlighted in this work to better equip both teachers and learners. These include the intrinsic relationship between vowel length and the German syllable, which does not exist in Wolof. It has also been shown that vowel length can be indicated in written German by several written characters that don’t often appear in the Wolof language.