**7. Toward a new epistemology of field education**

Until today, traditional knowledge in Africa has only been transmitted orally to children and at home for those who still use their languages. Speaking of the Palenque people, Pabla Pérez Tejedor describes the transmission of this knowledge as being similar to that of other peoples, especially Africans, who have not yet codified their languages.

All this knowledge and practice is transmitted by the elders to the new generations, through observation, practice, and use of the spoken language. It is through the spoken language that the elders and adults of Palenque transmit their most valuable knowledge to their brothers, sons, friends, nephews, cousins, members ([12], p. 76).

This traditional transmission must give way to a methodologically well-thoughtout academic transmission. It would therefore be wise for higher education to think *Perspective Chapter: The Transmission of National Languages and the Conservation... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109713*

and rethink the training of students and teachers in a new field methodology. This must be able to combine modernity and tradition. Thus, any field study must be designed in such a way that the involvement of those concerned is necessary, or even compulsory. In concrete terms, the field in question must be made up of the interlocutors of the languages in question but also of the speakers of these languages, that is, those who have learned the language as a second language (Language 2). They will consist of different age groups and genders. The learners should be accompanied by their trainers. In this way, knowledge will be gathered objectively as several sources are brought together, and those concerned, those who have mastered the language and are able to manipulate it, are also present.

What can be proposed is an epistemology based on the researcher (teacher or student). The researcher must be at the center of the whole methodology and at the same time all around. This means that we return to the reflexivity of the fieldwork in question. The researcher must go and find the objects, must go to the places and to the individuals:

*[…] The method of transmission of this cultural heritage is essentially based on dialogue and the telling of stories by the elders, combined with observation and practice of the knowledge that is at the heart of the learning process. In other words, children and young people appropriate collective knowledge by observing and reproducing the activities of the elders and adults, thanks to a permanent dialogue between the two groups. Two languages are involved in this process. Tejedor ([12], pp. 76–77).*

The figure below shows the place of the researcher in the field. This figure shows that the researcher must be at the center of everything. This means that he or she must go towards the objects, the things; surround himself or herself with individuals who will inform him or her, establishing interpersonal relationships; and actually be in the place of investigation. All of these elements combined will make it possible to carry out scientific fieldwork.

The field, here, is all those elements that surround the researcher. For a good field study, the researcher must be "in" the field, that is, be at one with the field for it to be properly understood and transmitted. All the elements around the researcher must also be interconnected with him/her.

### **8. The transmission of national languages and cultural heritage**

Researchers (teachers or trainers and trainees or students) + interviewees gather in the field, study it, and find a modus vivendi for a good transmission of languages, which will be the basis for the transmission of cultures, including the cultural heritage of peoples. This group thus formed must study these languages in the field. Once the study is done, it will be necessary to train the trainers in order to train the students. Tourneux ([3], p. 25–26) mentioned that "it is especially important to have excellent teachers who are well trained in linguistic fieldwork and who are not stingy with their time."

Example: safeguarding traditional knowledge and practices. Let us take the example of the Kotoko people, an indigenous people of the Logone Valley.

The Kotoko people are a water people because they live all along the Chari and Logone rivers. Their main activity is fishing. Appropriate means are therefore used for this purpose. The instrument used by this people for fishing is the "wàm zémí." This tool is "made up of two distinct parts." It is the "wàm," which is the dugout canoe in

which the fishermen carry out their activity, and the triangular net placed at the front of the dugout canoe, which is called "zémí" [13], p. 4. This knowledge can only be transmitted when one is in contact, including in the field, to observe and collect the data necessary to teach it.

It is a disappearing skill since today none of these pirogues exist on these rivers. It is perhaps time that a fieldwork with linguists, historians, sociologists, and geographers, a multidisciplinary team, be done on this very important material of the Kotoko culture with the aim of rehabilitating it because it is part of the cultural heritage of a people. This disappearance has impoverished the Kotoko, because they had to look for other sources of income apart from fishing. And yet, if the educational system already took into account the transmission of cultural heritage, there would certainly not have been this loss.
