THE LANGUAGE OF AFRICAN LITERATURE

             "THE LANGUAGE OF AFRICAN LITERATURE": BY NGUGI WA THIONG’O                     

                                                                    A 'SUMMARY' 
                                                 BY NWANI UCHENNA WILLIAMS

The capitalist powers of Europe carved an entire continent with a multiplicity of people, culture and languages into different colonies. The political and economic activities were seized, while the colonial power that came with a bible and sword imposed their culture on us. The struggles of Africans to liberate their economy, culture and politics proved infertile. The African writers’ conference held in Makerere deliberated on our literature very much.

            Africa was divided into different languages of the European powers namely: English-speaking, French-speaking, or Portuguese-speaking country. Thus, to air our grievances, we have to literally translate it from our mother tongue to a foreign tongue. Even for our literature to be applied, it has to be put in a foreign language. During that conference, Africans who wrote in their mother tongue were excluded, keeping behind only Africans who wrote in English.

            Language basically is a means of communication and carrier of culture. But in countries like Denmark, Sweden, English is only spoken and written, but not a carrier of culture. It serves only as a means of communication. Our African language has refused to go extinct regardless of what it has passed through; it was actually preserved by some peasants who saw no variance between speaking their own mother tongue and integrating into a larger continental or national geography.

Why should we promote and honour their language to such a height? We have to reconnect ourselves to create a higher democratic system, love and appreciate our mother tongue, and write with it without reservations for the world to see. That is our blessing and inheritance from God.