The language question constitutes one of the fundamental problems confronting the modern Nation-States of Africa today. Should the languages of the erstwhile colonial masters be retained wholesale as the media of educational instruction and for all other purposes, including government business, or should they be replaced with one or more indigenous languages in each national territory? With the exception of Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, which have successfully resolved the thorny problem of selecting only one, single national language, all the other African countries adopt compromise solutions in which translation activity looms large.