Celebrated writer delves into the paradox of publishing in local languages

Veteran author Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o

If Kenyan-born author Ngugi wa Thiong’o was a character in a fictional work, he would be categorised as flat. For Ngugi in the late 1970s and his advocacy for the use of local languages in literature embodies the same spirit in 2019.

During a discussion on the use of local languages in the Competency Based Curriculum this week, Ngugi spoke candidly about the value of African languages.

“There is a myth that when you write in foreign language, you reach the world. It is as if when you write in African languages, the world disappears,” he sarcastically said amid laughter.

To demonstrate the value of language as a courier of culture, Ngugi revealed that the first translator of the bible from Latin to English was killed because advocates of Latin language considered other languages ‘unholy’ to convey the scripture.

Ngugi argued that the first thing the coloniser or enslaver goes for after a military conquest were language and naming system of the conquered.

He said when Japan conquered Korea in 1910, they imposed Japanese language and even names until 1945 during the end of the Second World War when Korea navigated its way into the past to reclaim and rebuild its culture. In Decolonising the Mind, Ngugi argues that imperialists and their foreign language have been placed at the centre while natives are at the periphery. Therefore, there is need to revolutionise discourse by placing African language at the centre and displacing the language of the foreigners.

The writer said Africans have been “programmed” to believe their languages are inferior. With time, people internalise negativity and normalise it and foreign language is considered national and intellectual while African ones are regarded inferior.

Children in schools are forced by teachers to carry a disc of shame and mockery when they speak their mother tongues. In many cases, they are caned for speaking in their mother tongues.

“We must never humiliate a child for using a language they inherited. If you know other languages in the world and not your own, that is mental enslavement. When learning French, you are not punished for speaking English. It is only in the colonised states that such a punishment exists,” stated Ngugi.

The matter has been made worse by some notions that mother tongue is inferior to European languages, he said.

“They can’t tell you why Luhya, for example, is not intellectual, they don’t really know the reason because negativity has been internalised in them…It is not that people don’t like their language, it is programmed as part of the colonial process,” argued Ngugi.

The celebrated writer supported the reintroduction of local languages in primary school and said it should proceed to secondary schools and universities.

At the event, Ngugi launched his new book Kenda Muiyuri: Rugano rwa Gikuyu na Mumbi that will later be translated to other languages and The Perfect Nine as an English translation.

“We need to use our local languages as the foundation and the writings can be translated later to other languages,” argued Ngugi.

Popular novels by Ngugi’s also include Matigari, Wizard of the Crow, A Grain of Wheat, Devil on the Cross and The River Between. His plays include I will Marry When I Want, The Black Hermit and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi among other publications.  

But it is not only Ngugi who is obsessed with local languages. Senegalese Sembene Ousmane was also another strong advocate of the same.

At some point of his writing and filming career, Sembene who authored Xala (Temporary impotence) and God’s Bits of Wood started using his indigenous Wolof language.

Despite criticism, he never bowed to pressure to abandon his language in literary and film works.