A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OWe can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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We think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.
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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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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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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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What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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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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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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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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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 has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
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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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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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And even in terms of justice, law codes, the legal system. A person who does not know English in Africa is excluded from that system because he can only operate through acts of translation.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O