So we’re talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people’s lives in history.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OLife, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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Our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it.
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Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language.
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I was wondering why I was put in prison for working in an African language when I had not been put in prison for working in English. So really, in prison I started thinking more seriously about the relation between language and power.
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In terms of language, English is very dominant vis-Ã-vis African language. That in itself is a power relationship – between languages and communities – because the English language is a determinant of the ladder to achievement.
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How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?
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The Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.
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The same questions are there in Native American languages, they’re there in native Canadian languages, they’re there is some marginalized European languages, like say, Irish.
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How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go?
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Another phenomenon developing in Kenya is ethnic cleansing – and that’s the thing that has made me very sad. Because some people will use the cover of the problems of rigged elections to do things that are unacceptable like ethnic cleansing and displacement of people. It’s completely unacceptable.
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We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
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Then they begin to see through their language that the problems described there are the same as the problems they are having. They can identify with characters from another language group.
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Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind?
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If a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community.
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The Bible in translation is being read to thousands and thousands in Africa. It is an integral part of their functioning and the way they look at the world.
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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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