Africa-Press – Senegal. Senegalese linguist-editor and economist Pathé Diagne died Wednesday in Dakar at the age of 89, his nephew Mademba Ndiaye announced.
Né le 7 janvier 1934 à Saint-Louis du Sénégal, Pathé Diagne est « cet intellectuel de toutes les batailles pour les langues nationales, notamment aux côtés de ses compagnons Cheikh Anta Diop et Ousmane Sembène », a témoigné le journaliste.
Mademba Ndiaye recalled that it was he who « organized the famous symposium which allowed the scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, for nights, to expose his thoughts at the University of Dakar » in 1982.
After the Cairo symposium of 1974, this symposium at the initiative of the Sankoré editions of Pathé Diagne is considered as one of the rare opportunities offered to the Senegalese Egyptologist to answer in depth on all of his work before academics.
Alioune Sall « Paloma » a confié à l’APS que Pathé Diagne est un « homme pluriel qui présentait plusieurs facettes (…) un vrai chercheur (…) il n’y a plus de gens qui ont exploré les sciences humaines au Sénégal que lui ».
“Pathé Diagne is keen on sharing. He knew how to handle the weapon of criticism and concepts,” continued Mr. Sall, praising the “qualities of heart and mind” of the deceased.
Alioune Sall, a nephew of the disappeared, estimated that Senegal « needs the enlightenment and the quality of the sociolinguist who had the ability to read the realities with intellectual audacity, especially in these troubled times like those we know » .
He was above all a connoisseur of the thought of Cheikh Anta Diop in its subtle, fruitful and controversial aspects, continued Alioune Sall « Paloma ».
“He was, without ever drawing glory from it, one of the greatest connoisseurs of Cheikh Anta Diop. He dedicated a book to her. Personally, I think it is the most enlightening and edifying work on the thought of Cheikh Anta Diop with all the controversy and complexity it has given rise to,” he underlined.
In a text that he devoted to him in 1969, the newspaper Le Monde indicated that he belonged to a « family of wealthy traders ».
After studying at the Lycée Faidherbe, in his home town, he prepared a law degree and a degree in letters at the University of Dakar.
In 1965, he defended a thesis in Paris prepared under the supervision of Professor Maurice Byé. This thesis focused on “economic integration in West Africa”.
Désireux de mener à son terme cette double formation juridique et littéraire, il s’apprêta alors à passer un doctorat ès lettres à l’université d’Aix-en-Provence, après avoir achevé la rédaction d’un volumineux travail sur « l’adaptation des langues africaines à la modernité », indiquait encore Le Monde.
Cet historien des civilisations était le fondateur des éditions Sankoré.
Pathé Diagne était aussi le mari de la sociologue Fatou Sow, chercheure à l’IFAN et l’une des premières étudiantes de l’Université de Dakar, devenue l’université Cheikh Anta Diop.
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