What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OMany people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
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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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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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The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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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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Writing in African languages became a topic of discussion in conferences, in schools, in classrooms; the issue is always being raised – so it’s no longer “in the closet,” as it were. It’s part of the discussion going on about the future of African literature.
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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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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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Those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mould it and those committed to breaking it up; those who aim to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow […] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes
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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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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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The Pan-Africanism that envisaged the ideal of wholeness was gradually cut down to the size of a continent, then a nation, a region, an ethnos, a clan, and even a village in some instances But Pan-Africanism has not outlived its mission.
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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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