Mariama Khan, the prolific filmmaker and poet, has authored another book on the economics of language in Africa entitled: 'Indigenous languages, the way to African renaissance', published by Sandeng Publishers, in July 2009.

The book is about how Africa can use indigenous languages to build institutions in Africa. We look at the issues dealt on in the book by chapters. In chapter one, the author reflects on the vocation of traditional griots or praise singers in narrating family genealogies, praise singing and oral poetry. The author explores the use of foreign languages in Africa and how this impacts on the socio-economic development in Africa.

In chapter two, she explores language as a medium of knowledge transfer, source of identity, linguistic freedom and a stimulator of or barrier to participation. And further explores how language is about power and control.

In chapter three, she looks at how language is an important variable in development and showed why it is important to mainstream indigenous languages in the development process. In the same chapter, she also looks at the economic and social development in Africa, which has failed to meet expectations in the past four decades.

In chapter four, the author deals with the evidence of the book to show that the use of indigenous languages makes economic sense in Africa. She also looks at the language discourse in the global context and practical concerns, such as how do we adopt a common indigenous language as a national or regional language, side by side with a European language or French.

In chapter five, Mariama Khan further discusses language and academic performance, cognitive development, literacy, human resource development, human rights, political participation, and accountability and good governance. The author also uses geographic information systems (GIS) to map the languages of The Gambia.

In chapter six and the final chapter, the author deals with the policies and practical implications of adopting indigenous languages as part of the development processes in Africa.

The book concluded that it makes economic sense to adopt indigenous languages that the best way to African renaissance is through the mainstreaming of their mother tongue languages as the only way to promote the agency of people and to ensure that citizens fully participate in the development process and can hold leaders to account.

The author, Mariana Khan, hails from Brikama in the Western Region, got her secondary education at St Joseph and St Augustine's Senior Secondary Schools in Banjul. She has degrees from Brandies University, Masachusset, USA, University of Torinolitcilo, Italy and St Mary's University Canada. Mariama Khan was a UNESCO research fellow in Egypt in 2005 and from 2006 to 2008 and was the World Bank scholar-in-residence at Brandeis University.