Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OI’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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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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 can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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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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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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O