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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OSo what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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For me, being in prison writing in an African language was a way of saying: “Even if you put me in prison, I will keep on writing in the language which made you put me in prison.”
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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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It was a revelation for me, in a practical sense, that you could write in an African language and still reach an audience beyond that language through the art of translation.
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You get another person who operates only in an African language and there are many persons who operate only in African languages; he or she is excluded from all the goodies that come with English.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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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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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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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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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So what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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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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We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
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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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What’s good about writing is that when you write novels or fiction, people can see that the problems in one region are similar to problems in another region.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O