A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OWhy did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind?
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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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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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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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.
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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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What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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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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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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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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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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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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They want to be the ones telling people: “This is what we have done in history” but when people begin to say, “No this is what we have done in history” it’s a different thing.
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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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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
NGUGI WA THIONG'O