The main language families of Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon
In “The Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature” (1989) Chinua Achebe of Nigeria defends his practice as an African writer of writing in a European tongue, English.
The title is a take-off on a book by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature” (1986). Ngũgĩ gave up writing in English. He said that to be truly free of Africa’s old European masters one must write in an African language, that Europe forced its languages on Africa to control it, that Senghor and Achebe, by writing in European languages, are handmaidens of imperialism.
Ngũgĩ tells of his boyhood in Kenya, of how he was taught in his native Kikuyu language at school when suddenly in 1952 the British authorities forced schools to teach in English instead. Proof that Europe forced its languages on Africa.
Achebe says it was not quite that simple, that Ngũgĩ is not being completely honest, that he is using language to play politics.
The truth is the British, both as rulers and Christian missionaries, generally taught Africans in their own languages. They had little interest in teaching English in Africa. The demand for European languages came mainly from the Africans themselves.
Examples:
- In Kenya the Scottish missionaries taught the Kikuyu in Kikuyu. It was the Kikuyu themselves who set up English-language schools.
- In Nigeria African demand for English instruction goes as far back as the early 1800s.
- In Angola it was the Marxists who fought against white rule who pushed Portuguese as the country’s main language.
When Achebe was editor of the African Writers Series in the 1960s he received a huge amount of writing – all of it in English!
And yet he wrote in English too. What was going on?
Achebe writes in English not because he wants to write to the world in a world language – or to write to white people in a white language. He wants to write to Nigerians and can only do that in English. If he wrote in his native Igbo he would only be writing to part of Nigeria.
Achebe understands that the British drew the borders of Nigeria, making English necessary as a side effect. But he also knows they are borders for which millions of his fellow Igbos died in the civil war of the 1960s. Nigeria is a land divided by three large languages and 200 little ones. English is the only language that can hold it all together without favouring any one part of the country.
And it is not just Nigeria. Ghana is the same way: English is the only language common to the whole country. And so on for many other African countries.
Elsewhere Achebe admits that sometimes it is hard to express African thought in English, but he has used that to shape English instead of letting a white English shape him or limit what he can say.
– Abagond, 2011.
Source: I read this in a collection of Acebe’s essays, “The Education of a British-Protected Child” (2009).
See also:
Abagond 
I deleted half dozen comments here because they had absolutely nothing to do with the post.
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@Bulanik:
Excellent thoughts. Thanks, you just made me think that maybe it also works the other way around: that the adopted language gradually starts to affect the way of thought and philosophy of the people, how they see and conceptualize things. Starts to change the foundations of their inner structures in a profound way. But, will they be able to think in two different ‘levels’, or is it irreversible, will they be able to go back to the original ‘thought’?
?
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Maybe language develops before thought? How can you think anything without words? They are not just tools for thoughts, they ARE the thought? How can you really understand anything without words? Language must be coded in our genes.
?
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@Bulanik
My toys ran out of batteries, so I just have to play with my mind…
It just fascinates me who deeply connected language is with thought. You are probably right. I often think with both, images and words.
But indeed language is so deeply ingrained and almost like a physical part of our bodies (to me at least), that different language is not just another culture, it is another world. Maybe it’s like looking through an open door (that studying opened) and you are looking at fascinating vistas of an entirely different world. But you cannot really walk through the door and enter, you are just trying to understand it from afar.
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Maybe language is a bit like virus.
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“Elsewhere Achebe admits that sometimes it is hard to express African thought in English, but he has used that to shape English instead of letting a white English shape him or limit what he can say.”
Hey, sometimes it’s even difficult to express “African-American” thought in English. For example, the words “racist/racism” are words that many African Americans believe that shouldn’t ever be applied to people of color, most particularly black people. Since these definitions have been intentionally overhauled, refined and redefined since the civil rights era, there’s more confusion, obfuscation and illusion attempting to hide white supremacy in plain view… making it normal.
How is it that blacks were never defined as being racist or practicing racism during slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow? Were blacks deemed racists when they were told to get out of towns all across America before the sun sets — or else?
So what’s changed THAT much? Last time I looked racial discrimination is still going strong, despite what some “vision impaired” folks have to say.
In today’s current politically correct climate, anyone can qualify to be a racist. Yet, no sane person can state that blacks are remotely close to being on an equal footing with white people – but blacks can NOW be racist – because the definition has morphed to say that anyone can.
So how are blacks to refer to those “white” skin people who are by far the most advantaged & privileged group in the racist global system we inhabit?
Super-ultra racists??
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@abagond: well done, I was wondering too will this be derailed too.
As for the use of colonial masters languages, perhaps they came to be not so much as the opressors language but sort of lingua franca instead of the dozens of natives. English being an outside language was perhaps easier to accept as universal language between different tribes (english being imported from outside and thus not representing none of the local native power issues between the natives) than the language of your neighbouring people or nation. I do not know, this is just guessing.
If we think of Northern Africa the question is even more complex. Why, still after their independece, many of the countries used french as sort of a second official language, even though they had arabic? Perhaps berbers, tuaregs, different bedouin tribes had strong dialects or even their own languages? I have no clue, but often wonder this.
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This is very informative I must say.
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Hannu Lipponen
It is possible to think without language. You could think in some combination of language, pictures, macros, feelings/sensations, and maybe other ways. I hope this isn’t too off-topic, but… Temple Grandin, who is an agricultural engineer, professor, and is autistic, thinks in pictures. This is an excerpt from an essay she wrote:
Now I would like to explain how I think visually. For example, when I think about what I have to do today, I see pictures in my imagination of going to the supermarket, and other activities. Language narrates the pictures and ‘videotapes’ that play in my imagination. When I design equipment for the livestock industry, I can test run it in full motion virtual reality in my mind. More on my visual methods of thinking are covered in Thinking in Pictures (GRANDIN 1995).
Visualizing equipment is easy because there are no language based concepts that cannot be visualized. Concrete things are easy to understand. Some philosophical writing is impossible for me to understand. Some of the words used in books about consciousness are so language based and abstract that I do not understand them. Words like “percept” and “mentalizing” make no sense to me. Even though I do not understand some language based concepts, I think I am truly conscious. I am a college professor and have designed equipment that is used by most of the large meat companies in the U.S. and Canada.
http://www.grandin.com/welfare/animals.people.autism.true.consciousness.html
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I did a post on Temple Grandin:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/temple-grandin/
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Ah, Professor Achebe, my old professor from my days at Bard. Glad to say I got A’s in all his classes and that he was very generous with his time, I frequently got to walk back to his residence with him after class and he was always open and entirely unpretentious with people who wanted to learn what he had to teach. For what it’s worth I can personally testify that he is and has always been a briliant and unflagging advocate for the peoples of Africa and the oppressed the world over.
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Chinua Achebe was offered an award recently, but he refused to take it….was reading about that a few weeks back.
I have read Things Fall Apart, although that was such a long time ago…..But, he is a well celebrated author, they made a play out of the book as well.
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Ah, the old sea serpent of the language of the African writer. It has been fiercely debated for decades…
Everyone, keep in mind that the view expressed here by Achebe is only one opinion. The opposite opinion, expressed by Ngugi wa Thiong’o deserves a post of its own. I for one believe Ngugi is right.
I think this is the problem with the authors who support this position. They are on the defensive. And to justify their « choice » (I’ll explain the inverted commas later) they feel the need to caricature their contradictors’ discourse and resort to dishonest argumentation.
Obviously, in the earlier phase of colonization, the colonizer had to use the local languages to school the children, for the simple reason that it was the most efficient way to establish their schools on the continent. But it was only the first phase. The second phase introduced bilinguism, and the later phase the replacement of local languages by the colonizer’s language as vehicle of the education.
See, that’s the dishonest argumentation I was talking about. Achebe conveniently forgets that the native languages were de-facto marginalized in the colonial administration, and that Africans who did not speak english/french/portuguese, etc… were relegated to subordinate positions. The most rewarding jobs were attributed to the Africans who had been schooled in the colonial languages.
People not familiar with African history must also realize that, in these times, appointments in the administration were the most coveted because they were the only ones which secured some job stability, and allowed a tiny minority of Africans to live above the poverty level .
Most importantly, Achebe purposely overlooks the fact that those Africans who” demanded” European languages were first and foremost the very product of the colonial system, and the very one who inherited the leadership after the independence. They did share their former masters’ disregard for native tongues and did very little to reintroduce those languages in the educational system and the administration (There were of course some exceptions).
At least, in most of the former British colonies, African languages are taught in the earlier grades. In the former French colonies, on the other hand, they are mostly absent from education. If one puts aside the use of African languages by missionaries (for proselytism purpose), nowadays only rural adults are given some basic “alphabetization” in their respective language. This contributes to give “alphabetization” a poor people’s thing image.
I believe everyone can easily imagine the problems caused, at individual level, by teaching a kid in a foreign language as is the case in most African countries nowadays, so I won’t dwell on this.
West Indian Egyptologist Alain Anselin once stated that “languages are the blackboxes of civilizations”. It is particularly true for cultures like ours, which are predominantly oral cultures.
By excluding our languages from the school system and limiting their usage to the private sphere, we prevent them from confronting the modern world. We disqualify them as adequate vehicle of modernity in the eyes of our children, thus reinforcing the status of the foreign (colonial) languages. We condemn them in the long term.
The first consequence is the impoverishment of African languages. People of my generation still speak those languages, but we can barely form a phrase without implementing French words in it. For instance, we do not master our languages enough to correctly create neologisms. Our parents and grandparents have to dumb down their turns of phrase when speaking to us.
Which brings me back to the main hypocrisy in Achebe’s discourse. That “choice” of writing in English (or French, Spanish, Portuguese…) is hardly a choice in the first place. An African who completed his scholarship in a European language and was never schooled in his native tongue (or who was taught this language only in the earlier grades) ends up being more at ease writing in the European language.
It’s my case. I speak my native tongue (Fongbe) fluently and I can write it. But the written language I master the most is French. Heck, when it comes to writing, even my English is better than my Fongbe.
Writing in a colonial language is not a choice. It’s just the easier way.
Regarding this:
This was the very dogma that the colonist instilled into the heads of the colonized. It sounds like a sensible argument… until one confronts it to the facts.
The fact is that the diversity of languages never prevented Africans to communicate between themselves. There are always been African lingua franca. For instance: Hausa in West Africa, Lingala in Central Africa, Swahili in East Africa, among others… Arabic is not an African language per se, but for centuries it did wonders to connect North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa in ways that neither French nor English could ever emulate.
That idea that Africa needs European languages is plain bullsh!t. If we had been colonized by the Nepalese or the Inuit, we would have African talking-heads today swearing that it’s only thanks to Nepalese and Inuit language that we can communicate with our brethrens from the other “tribes” (I hate this word)…
The fallacious argument that tribal enmities made it a necessity to resort to colonial languages has been disproven many times in African history. See for instance how Julius Nyerere replaced English by Swahili as the official language of Tanzania (Swahili was then spoken only by a tiny cluster of 5% of the population or such). It’s only a matter of political will.
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@dahoman X: Thanks. Not that I meant that africans needed any language from Europe, I was just thinking why they are so widely used today, but you answered that: trough education system they are installed in the use. Thanks for clarifying that. I knew about the swahili in the east but not about hausa and others. Arabic in Africa has always been a sort of mystery for me, as it is in elsewhere outside arabic sphere, since it is also the language of the colonists and conquerers, and foreign religion (islam). The word tribe was no meant to be degratory, that is why I used peoples and nations as well.
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No worries, Sam. I know you didn’t mean it that way. I was not really addressing your post, but rather this notion that is widely (and erroneously IMO) accepted even among Africans.
The thing is, Arabic in Africa was first and foremost a language of culture and trade. If we put aside the very peculiar situation of the christian kingdoms of Nubia, besieged for centuries by muslim forces, the Arabic attempts at conquests were punctual and mostly unsuccessful (despite notable exceptions, such as Djouder’s expedition against the Songhaï).
Arabic became a language of colonists and conquerors only during the 18th and 19th century when black Empire-builders such as Osman Dan Fodio and El hadj Omar Tall rose to power.
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Well, whether European, African or Asian, in a real multilingual society you need to have a common, more or less neutral languague, or the result could easily become a Belgium (with officers commanding soldiers in a language they do not understand), or worse… If the achievement of independence went without violence, and about everybody has family, friends or family of friends in the old colonizing country, why not keeping the old languague in use, so you are still able to read the old documents? It’s cheaper as well, and you can spend your time and money on something better…
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@ Teddy
The very point of Ngugi wa Thiongo is that the colonizer’s language is not a neutral language.
My point is that the common language can (and should) be an African language.
Lol. Now that’s the weirdest argument I read so far.
I’m not sure I’m getting your reasoning here, but considering the fact that 7 out of 10 African expatriates live in another African country, shouldn’t it be a further reason to develop the use of African languages?
I dunno…
Actually, speaking English, French, Spanish, Portuguese… makes our countries natural markets for the products made in Great Britain, France, Spain & Portugal.
For instance, if you ever set foot in a former french colony, you will be surprised by the omnipresence of the french press in the kiosks. If you walk into a bookshop, you will find mostly french books. Actually, there are chances that even the African books you will find there will have been printed in France…
Promoting African languages could result in a huge boost in local economical sectors such as edition, communications, education, research, software, etc… It would be an incentive for the African governments to invest in those branches of their economies they have been neglecting for decades. This would have significant repercussions on employment in nearly all sectors of the economy…
Replacing the european languages by African languages in the administration and the enterprise would also make our local employment markets less vulnerable to the competition of the workforce from the former colonizing countries.
http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/369061-angola-portugal-s-new-eldorado
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125409630023845069.html
Mhmmm. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I wonder what our leaders are waiting…
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Ngugi’s book, “Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature”, is at Google Books:
http://books.google.bj/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=z60udlv1F_cC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=Decolonising+the+Mind:+The+Politics+of+Language+in+African+Literature&ots=kJ7Vl8C85N&sig=ZvSJAKJL_DFhVW-hLxY6AjxUHik&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Decolonising%20the%20Mind%3A%20The%20Politics%20of%20Language%20in%20African%20Literature&f=false
Not all the pages are available, though.
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“The thing is, Arabic in Africa was first and foremost a language of culture and trade. If we put aside the very peculiar situation of the christian kingdoms of Nubia, besieged for centuries by muslim forces, the Arabic attempts at conquests were punctual and mostly unsuccessful (despite notable exceptions, such as Djouder’s expedition against the Songhaï).
Arabic became a language of colonists and conquerors only during the 18th and 19th century when black Empire-builders such as Osman Dan Fodio and El hadj Omar Tall rose to power.”
Eh? What do you mean here? Arabs invaded, conquered and settled in Africa as far back as the 7th century. Today Arabic is spoken from Egypt to Morocco and points further south for the same reason English is spoken in America-conquest and population mixing/replacement.
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@ Shady_Grady
I thought it was clear that I was talking about Sub-saharahan Africa, where, in the centuries that preceded the jihads of the 18th and 19th centuries, the conversions to islam and the expansion of Arabic occured mostly under pacific circumstances (through contacts with the populations of Northern Africa).
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Dahoman X that’s all good and well for some nations, but the history and development in Nigeria makes it impossible to pick one of Nigeria’s languages. Nigeria houses the three major linguistic branches of Africa, Niger-Congo Afro Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan. How do you pick which language to choose?
In Nigeria the only practical language is English. Maybe Achebe cannot speak for other African nations but he definitely knows what he is talking about when it comes to his own nation. Furthermore if one reds Things Fall Apart, despite the fact it is English it is structured as though one is speaking Igbo.
In addition to that the experience of living in a Francophone nation differs from those in Anglophone nations, even the styles of colonialism differ.
So can yo look at Nigeria’s map and pick out the language best for 150 million plus people from over 250 ethnic groups?
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So does Obiajunwa Wali, another Nigerian author who disagrees with Achebe and who went as far as stating that writing in English is a dead end for African literature.
Achebe’s position (like Obianjunja’s and Ngugi’s) should be judged on the basis of the arguments the author advances, and not on his nationality (or his notoriety). That’s why I clearly stated this in the beginning of my first post:
This is also the reason why I posted a link to Ngugi’s essay. Did you read it?
Yeah, I know. You are aware, though, that Ngugi wa Thiong’o is also from an English-speaking country?
Actually, even in Nigeria there are a few authors who share his opinions on the matter, as was demonstrated a few months ago by the reactions to Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s article (which was critical of Ngugi’s position):
http://carmenmccain.wordpress.com/tag/african-language-literature/
Please, take the time to read this article, and then follow the links at the bottom of the page. They link to blogs from Nigerian authors and intellectuals who explain why, in their opinion, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani was wrong.
Will you argument that, unlike Achebe, they do not “know what (they are) talking about when it comes to (their) own nation”?
I know both are rhetorical questions, yet the mere fact that you ask this with a straight face confirms my suspicion that you didn’t follow the link to Ngugi’s essay.
And obviously you didn’t get my point when I mentioned African lingua franca.
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I first came across this issue when i picked up a copy of Indian Vogue and noted it as written in English. The answer I got was that English is the only language common across India. I am being told the same thing about African countries.
I think they should pick dominant AFRICAN language for each country and print and publish in that language. Swahili is a good example of this.
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Once again how is writing in English a dead end? Achebe wrote in English for a reason, it was so that the widest audience possible could access his literature, and on that basis alone it was successful. However he made the language fit his thoughts and feeling he wrote it not to mimic proper English but to mimic his mother tongue.
I read it and still agree with premise, if Ngugi truly wants to rid himself of colonialism them he should strip himself down to the elements his forefathers lived in. You cannot complain a colonialism of the language, yet wear western clothes and the rest that goes along with it. And unfortunately people along these lines often stop short at language as though that was the only thing colonialism touched.
And once again as I stated before, experiences differ, Kenya was a settler state while Nigeria was not, African nations share colonialism but not all experiences are the same. South Africa is an English speaking nation are we now going to say that a Black South African and Nigerian have commonality on everything now?
Quite frankly I’m of the opinion that and African writer should write in the language of their choosing instead of people always shouting that the person is obviously Colonized in the mind if they dare to write in a European language.
So I ask again which language should Nigeria choose, should the choose Hausa, since it is the most widely spoken language in Nigeria, ignoring the fact that Nigeria went to war after Igbo people were mascaraed in the North by mostly Hausa speakers? So do tell us out of Nigeria’s 521 languages pick one that will satisfy the 3 majority groups and the other minority groups? And I want an actual answer, as you incorrectly assumed it was not rhetorical.
In addition to knowing English most Nigerians know several languages in their nation.
Instead of once again telling African nations what they should do, why not let them choose what is best for them. If English works for Nigeria then its their prerogative, if Swahili is what works for Tanzania then it should be their decision.
Of all the things African nations need to worry about this is what will solve African issues? Changing the languages to African ones will do nothing for Africans if they still have the lazy leaders that currently sit in office, now they just speak in a local language. Emphasizing local languages in schools is something I can agree on but the rest is pure nonsense. There’s a reason why India’s the world’s call center.
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@ Abagond
Due to the link to “Decolonizing the mind” I provided missing some pages, I did try and find another text by Ngugi wa Thiong’o which summarizes his views on the topic at hand.
It’s titled “The Future of African Literature”:
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/open-forum/7687-ngugi-wa-thiongo-future-african-literature.html
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@ Olanna
It’s his choice, and he’s entitled to it. But is it not the whole point of translation? To allow an author to reach an audience outside of his natural audience?
After all, who speaks Japanese outside of Japan? Yet, manga (huge fan here!) finds its public on all continents thanks to translations in many languages.
I believe Ngugi wa Thiong’o sold quite a few translations of his Gikuyu novels too. He’s one of the best-selling African writers, before a bunch of English/French/Portuguese/Spanish-writing African authors.
Besides, I read on the net that the most spoken language nowadays is Chinese (Mandarin?). Do you think authors from others continents (ie: American writers) should consider writing in Chinese? You know, to reach the widest audience possible…
Hey, Abagond! I just found a way to boost the audience of your blog!!
I hear this lot. Again, it’s a choice, but there are other options.
Do you think the result would have been less interesting if more authors had invested their creativity in their native tongue and let the translator convey their art to audiences from different cultural backgrounds? (As actually do writers from European and Asian countries)
Also, I’m glad you read the extracts of “Decolonizing the mind” I linked to earlier. I’d be interested in hearing your answers to some of Ngugi’s questions:
Now, although I disagree with most of your points, I can admit that they are understandable from a certain point of view. But that:
That is completely ridiculous.
This is not the way the world works, my friend.
When Guttenberg “borrowed” the printing press from the Chinese, he didn’t feel compelled to import Chinese language, clothing, chopsticks and all things Chinese into Germany. When Western Europe dropped Roman numerals for Arab numerals, they did not massively convert to Islam (and actually kicked the Arabs out of Europe soon after).When the American settlers copied the native Indians’ political institutions, it didn’t occur to them that they had to ban English and start speaking in native tongues. Those things do not come in a package. Each civilization adapts whatever aspect of the next civilization it thinks fits its interests, goals and purpose and feels free to discard the rest.
This may be a scoop for you, but despite writing in English, Chinua Achebe still wear African clothes, eat African food, listen to African music and speak his native tongue on a daily basis. Oh, and so does Ngugi, by the way.
Your reasoning here is akin to the one of those white American geniuses who keep whining that African-Americans should either stop denouncing racism or go back to Africa.
You sound like there are some sort of Kenyan/Beninese conspiracy out there to force Nigeria into dropping English as an official language.
The language issue has been an ongoing debate among Nigerian writers, linguists, historians, politicians and everyday people since the Independence.
Google is your friend.
*Sighs*
Instead of expecting some anonymous Beninese guy multitasking behind his computer to bring a definitive solution to the heated debate that has been raging for decades, why not fire that Google of yours and review the propositions from Nigerians folks who actually, seriously, tackled the question?
Just a suggestion.
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Once again, Achebe had his own reasons for writing English, maybe part of the reason was the fact he want to make sure his position on how colonialism affected one group Africans at the turn of the century was clear. Things are often lost in translations, meanings are misconstrued, he wanted to make sure his own Igbo thoughts were correctly translated into English. Why do you feel the need to challenge his “Africaness” because he dared to write in English, he was not chasing down Ngugi and telling him “Ah why use a local language, no one will read your book?”
History is written by the winners and English won out, which is why China is desperately searching for English teachers to teach in their schools. English is the global language and Mandarin is not, which is why every scientist from Germany to Japan enters work into a scientific journal its in English.
And your comparison between the printing press and colonialism is ridiculous, and crazy. You are comparing a man who adopted the printing press to people who were now forced to be citizens of the British/French/etc commonwealths? Did your country adopt French culture or was it imposed on you? So you guys got to pick and choose what you want and tell the French “Nope we don’t want any of that”?
Really I wonder for all these internet intellectuals…
What scoop maybe that’s news to you not me, but I stand by my point either make it an issue about all parts of colonialism and not just pick and choose. If language is a problem then clothes should be as well colonialism changed a lot of things in African societies, or it was only English the British brought?
“Your reasoning here is akin to the one of those white American geniuses who keep whining that African-Americans should either stop denouncing racism or go back to Africa.”
I think you should keep your half baked descriptions to yourself because it doesn’t describe me in the least bit. I’m a practical optimistic, unlike you Afrocentric folks that live in a dream world far from the one the rest of us inhabit. Colonialism is part of Africa’s legacy, would it be nice for African languages to be the official languages? Yes, it would but it ignores the realities on the ground, not all nations can do what Tanzania did this is just being matter of fact here. If Nigeria is able to develop and its official language happens to be English does that make Nigeria any less African.
I think for Nigeria the best route is what South Africa did and just make the top languages official as well. But I’m not going to knock Cote D’Ivoire for sticking with French, I’m not from their I don’t know how dynamics work there so I’m not going to tell them what’s best for them.You remind me of those NGOs that come to African nations and somehow know what’s best for Africans than Africans know their damn selves?! WTF kind of nonsense is that!
Yes its a Beninese and Kenyan conspiracy *rolls eyes*
And you know what for now everyone is making do with English so you should respect that and work about your own house. Google may be a friend but here’s some friendly advice mind your own business and face front to your own issues.
Quite frankly you should shove your suggestions up your ass considering the fact that your own nation ironically owe is name to Nigeria.
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I beg your pardon? When and where exactly did I challenge his “africaness”?
Uhm, no.
Did someone say that?
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Dahoman X:
Thanks for the links. I will do a Ngugi post some time this coming week. I never dreamed this post would get more than seven comments.
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I don’t understand the purpose of this post. What new has been said here?
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I beg your pardon? When and where exactly did I challenge his “africaness”?
You did with your responses, that Achebe is some how less authentic or Adiche another who writes in English. Mostly your condescending prick attitude…but whatever.
DO let Nigeria know when you guys plan to loan its name back, I would hate for you guys to be oppressed yet again….
Google intellectuals never fail to live up to their hype 😀
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Again, I would appreciate would you mind to tell me when and where exactly I wrote that.
Lol.
The real irony here is that our country is named Benin for the very same reason that Nigeria maintains English as an official language: It is considered neutral, because it can’t be associated to any ethnic group of the country.
And here I thought you agreed with this kind of reasoning…
And no, there is no plan to “loan it back”. But since the matter seems to be of great concern to you, I’ll make sure to let you know should I ever hear any news about it. Just don’t hold your breath, OK?
Now I have a confession to make: I can’t beat you at your own game.
I’m talking about this:
and such ladylike witticisms sparkled over every one of your posts.
You see, I stopped taking part in name-calling contest somewhere around the age of 8 or 9. This means I’m no match for your argumentative brilliance.
Actually I’m not even interested in trying.
So, if you really intend to keep the discussion at this level, I suggest we call it a day and just agree to disagree.
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@ Dee
“I don’t understand the purpose of this post. What new has been said here?”
Nothing. Information gathering exercise, from my observations.
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@ Dee & Happiness
If you’re referring to Abagond’s original entry, I find you are severe.
As a writer, it is legitimate that he’s interested about how fellow writers relate to English, which is after all the tool of his trade.
He has done other posts about English before.
If you can’t find any new info in his post, this means you were already familiar with the topic. Some of his readers around the world are not.
On the other hand, if you were referring to the comments section, I’m guilty as charged. I acknowledge there have been more elevated discussions around these parts.
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Lol so condescending behavior is the mark of a gentleman:D Wow the things one will hear…As I said before, things don’t need to be plain sight to be there. Its like saying because no one burns crosses on the front lawn obviously racism is dead, ignoring the hidden but very present institutional racism.
I present a point that yes its nice for nations if they can use an indigenous language, but you flipantly respond back that “oh there’s this language and this language it can be done” ignoring the histories of individual nations. And from Nigeria’s standpoint which other countries themselves have, it can’t be done. The largest language Hausa presents its own conflicts as well as the fact you have minorities feeling that once again the big 3 (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba) are screwing us over. Use a minority language and the fact that its a less used language requires a rediculous overhaul of building new words and phrases which will have people wondering why didn’t they just pick one of the big 3. Trying to combine languages is time consuming and presents a problem, which grammar structure do you use? Hausa’s or Yoruba’s? So Nigeria is stuck at a position of making English along with several languages official, the other options have too many problems.
This is what I said and until you started talking to me like I was stupid I didn’t address you back in the same manner. My simple question of what would you do if you were in Nigeria’s position was too much for someone of your high and lofty status so you acted like a prick and responded as suck.
I even agreed with you that African languages should have more focus, but yes I’m also the same person that thinks Blacks should go back to Africa if they think America is so racist, right?
Oh so neutrality is not a crime, my word…and here I thought one might die from it.
Please save your false indignation, we all know the “I’m Mr/Mrs mature” tend to be the first people to curse up a storm when the opportunity presents itself.
And as I said Afrocentric folks like you want to believe that Africans speaking English and not getting back to their “roots” is the problem. So Nigeria pick Hausa as the official language? What’s next, because this is the reason for the corruption, the English language, of course how could we miss that!? Ngugi has his own reasons for suggesting that African writers should write in their native tongue, but Achebe is well in his right to write in English and he shouldn’t be judged for it as though he was so colonized that he can’t help to write in English.
You are right let’s agree to disagree, I’m sure you have more googling to do of course, wouldn’t want to stop you from getting your vitual PhD
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@Dahoman X…
Anonymous reader here to say thanks for your well-written opinion and lengthy counter-arguments and links. That ish takes time to patiently write out and to also further respond to so…yeah, thanks again. I found what you wrote informative.
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Thanks.
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I love how some cultures have meaning behind the individual’s name. Chinua Achebe’s name means, my spirit, come fight for me…
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I like the way both Chinua and Ngugi have discussed about African literature but the reality is that although we use foreign language to express our culture as said by Ngugi but what we consider is just a content of a wok it contains; because it is not esier to unite both Africans through our native language but rather a small ethinic group.
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THANK YOU
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[…] and Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o once clashed over the use of language in works by African writers. Achebe wrote his novels primarily in English and defended the use of a “language of […]
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I wish posts like these would get more love. I just bought the Kindle version of ‘Things Fall Apart’ because of the post and the fascinating (but all too brief) discussion beneath.
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[…] effects of the legacy of colonization and neo-colonialism, and Achebe counters in his essay “The Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature” by arguing for the viability of using the language of the colonizer (English, French, […]
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Great post! I haven’t read the specific books you discuss here, Abagond, but I think I agree with Achebe. Nigerian writers who use English are using a language that everybody in NIgeria learns. And why can’t English be used by writers from Africa? I agree with Achebe. It’s about access, but also African writers using French or English write in those languages in distinct ways. It’s not just mindlessly copying Europeans, but expressing themselves using languages in unique ways.
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Ngugi’s argument is a valid but hard to be implemented in the current World situation where the world has become a “village.” The writer needs to interact with this Village and can not do it in his mothertonue. Most people have accepted the imperialism that Ngugi is soo much opposed to. Most African writers, however, shamefully don’t know their local languages.
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Interesting read at how the British forced their English language on the Africans. Learning about how colonialism works. The white European forcing their their ways on a people.
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Hello! Thanks for the great article. I am looking for the full version of the essay The Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature” (1989) for my university bachelor degree thesis. Do you know where I can find it?
Thank you!
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@ Erika Panfili
I read it in a collection of his essays, “The Education of a British-Protected Child” (2009).
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0031W1E04/)
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Awesome! Thank you so much, it means a lot to me!
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