Ngugi laments dying African indigenous languages
July 24, 2012 by Segun Olugbile 6 Comments
Popular author, Prof. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, has lamented the rate at which Africans are abandoning their indigenous languages for foreign languages, saying this trend is tantamount to self-enslavement.
Wa Thiong’o said this on Monday while speaking at the second edition of the Read Africa initiative of the United Bank for Africa Foundation to promote reading culture among pupils in Lagos.
According to him, most Africans are neglecting their indigenous languages in preference for foreign languages, noting that this trend was dangerous for the sustenance of Africans and their traditions.
He noted that Africans who have the mastery of other people’s languages at the expense of their own indigenous languages have subjected themselves to “second slavery.”
The Kenyan writer, who teaches at Yale University, added that those who were proficient in their indigenous languages and added mastery of other foreign languages had truly empowered themselves.
The writer of the popular Weep Not Child, warned Africans against killing their indigenous languages, noting that the consequences of this would be too much to bear.
“For me, enslavement is when you know all the languages of the world but you don’t know your own language. Empowerment is when you know your own language and you add other languages to it. We should promote our languages. We should encourage our children to speak our own language,” he said.
The author, who was accompanied to the formal inauguration of the second edition of the Read Africa by his 17-year-old son, Thiongo Ngugi, said he stopped writing in English Language about 10 years ago, to spearhead this campaign.
“I stopped writing in English Language 10 years ago because Africa is our base and we must not lose our base and our indigenous languages. Since then I have been writing in Nkiyu language and I later do translation myself or I look for somebody to do it for me,” he said.
Addressing the audience including pupils and top officials of UBA led by the Group Managing Director, Mr. Phillip Odoza, the writer called for the development of young African writers.
He, however, told the pupils that they should cultivate a robust reading culture if they hoped to become good writers.
“Reading is an integral part of imagination and without reading your imagination will shrink. It’s like food, when you don’t eat, your body will shrink and when you don’t feed your spirit with religious books, your moral value will shrink,” he said.
Wa Thiong’o, who said he wrote his first two books within his first two years in college, urged the students to start writing now.
“See yourself as a person first before you see yourself as a student and don’t think you are too small to write, start now,” he said.
Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of the UBA Foundation, Miss Ijeoma Azo, had explained that the foundation would distribute Wa Thinog’o’s Weep Not Child freely to all secondary school pupils across Africa to promote reading.
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FFROM ALLAFRICA.COM
Nigeria: I Prefer Indigenous Literatures - Wa Thiong'o
By Yemi Adebisi, 15 January 2011He has severally recommended to African writers to develop indigenous literature. His claim is that African writers need to write in African language in order to project her rich culture to the whole world. No wonder he prefers to read literatures written in his local language, Gikuyu.
In his response to what his thoughts are about contemporary fiction in Kenya and the more recent texts in Gikuyu that have had an impact on him, he said, "There are several writers who now write in Gikuyu. Ms. Waithira Mbuthia is very prolific. But so is Gitahi Gititi, now a professor of English, but writing in Gikuyu. Mwangi Mutahi is another who has published three novels in Gikuyu. There is also Gatua wa Mbugua, a poet and a scientist. He has just completed and successfully defended a scientific thesis written entirely in Gikuyu for the Department of Crop Science at Cornell. There are many more. Most of these writers are contributors to the Gikuyu language journal, Mutiiri, originally based at New York University, but now at the University of California Irvine."
During the late 70's, his commitment to art and community led him to form communal theatre groups in villages, which showcased some of his most indicting plays. These works portrayed the political corruption of post-colonial life in Kenya and the people's struggle to define an identity despite years of harsh political and social transitions. In 1977, Ngugi was arrested for his involvement with the communal theatres. While in prison, Ngugi reflected on the urgency in forming a truly African literature and at the same time wrote Devil on the Cross on prison- issued toilet paper. He subsequently would abandon English for his native Gikuyu for all his future novels. After being released from prison, Ngugi lost a university position and his family suffered from constant harassment. In 1982, Ngugi left Kenya and has been in exile ever since. Ngugi Wa Thiong'o is the recipient of numerous awards including the Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence, Political Conscience and Integrity (1992); Gwendolyn Brooks Center Contributors Award for Significant Contribution to the Black Literary Arts (1994); Fonlon-Nichols Prize (1996); and the Distinguished Africanist Award by the New York African Studies Association (1996).