Decolonising the Mind: The

Politics of Language in African

Literature
Ngg wa Thiong'o

History of The Language of African Literature

1981 - The Writers Association of Kenya conference paper, theme: Writing

for our Children
1982 - Language and African Literature conference at the University of
Calabar, Nigeria
1983 - Zimbabwe International Book Fair, published in the African Writers
Association newsletter
1984 - read at University seminar at Bayreuth University, opening speech at
the Conference on New Writing from Africa at the Commonwealth Institute in
London
1985 - First published in New Left Revew
1986 - Published in Decolonsng the Mnd

Ngg wa Thiong'o

I would like to make it clear that I am writing as much about myself as about
anybody else. (xii)
In 1977 I published Petals of Blood and said farewell to the English language
as a vehicle of my writing of plays, novels and short stories. All my subsequent
creative writing has been written directly in Gikuyu language This book,
Decolonsng the Mnd, is my farewell to English as a vehicle for any of my
writings. From now on it is Gikuyu and Kiswahili all the way. However, I hope
that through the age old medium of translation I shall be able to continue
dialogue with all. (xiv, A Statement)

Importance of the Language

The very words we use are a product of a collective history. So, too, is the present work. (xxi)
The choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to a peoples definition
of themselves in relation to their natural and social environment, indeed in relation to the
entire universe. (4)
Language (11)
has a suggestive/magical power riddles, proverbs, music
view of the world
beauty
Language, any language, has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a
carrier of cultureand history. (13)
Language as culture is the collective memory bank of a peoples experience in history. (15)
transmsson from one generaton to the next (our chldren)
Written literature and orature are the main means by which a particular language transmits
the images of the world contained in the culture it carries. (15)

Africa: Language and Politics

The present predicaments of Africa are often not a matter of personal choice:
they arise from an historical situation. Their situations are not so much a
matter of personal decision as that of a fundamental social transformation of the
structures of our societies starting with a real break with imperialism and its
internal ruling allies Africa needs back its economy, its politics, its culture, its
languages and all its patriotic writers. (xii)
Imperialism is still at the root of many problems in Africa, but Western media
likes to pretend the problems are isolated among tribes.

Imperalsm s total: t has economc, poltcal, mltary, cultural and psychologcal

consequences for the people of the world today. (2)

Africa: Language and Politics cont. 2

African realities are greatly affected by a struggle between an imperialist

tradition (neo-colonial establishment/bourgeoisie) and a resistant tradition
(working class, middle class, and academics).

The bggest weapon welded and actually daly unleashed by mperalsm aganst that collectve
defance s the cultural bomb. The effect of the cultural bomb s to annhlate a peoples belef n
ther names, n ther languages, n ther envronment, n ther hertage of struggle, n ther unty,
n ther capactes and ultmately n themselves. (3)

[The cultural bomb] makes them want to dentfy wth that whch s furthest removed from
themselves; for nstance, with other peoples languages rather than their own. (3)

[I]mperialism continues to control the economy, politics, and cultures in

Africa. (4)

It s an ever-contnung struggle to seze back ther creatve ntatve n hstory through a real
control (4)

Africa: Language and Politics cont. 3

Berlin in 1884 saw the division of Africa into the different languages of the
European powers. African countries, as colonies and even today as neocolonies, came to be defined and to define themselves in terms of the languages
of Europe: English-speaking, French-speaking or Portuguese-speaking
African countries. (5)
The new school/colonial schools echoes Native American/Mexican-American
experiences of language and culture loss.

But better than the cannon t made the conquest permanent. Language was the means of
sprtual subjugaton. (9)

1952 - declaration of emergency in Kenya, schools taken over by colonial

regime; systematic suppression of African languages/elevation of English

The language of my educaton was no longer the language of my culture.Englsh became the
language of my formal educaton. (11)

The African Writer and the English Language

Is it a gift? (7-8) (elevation of colonial languages, elite)

natural language of literary and political mediation between nations in Africa and other
continents

a capacity to unite African peoples against divisive tendencies inherent in the multiplicity of
African languages within the same geographic state
the common language
a unifying force
Or is it a curse; a systematic and enduring suppression and belittling of African identity? (devaluing of
African languages and culture)

colonial alienation: disassociation of the sensibility of that child from his natural and social
environment (17)
He was being made to stand outside himself to look at himself. (17)

...racist images of Africans and Africa such a colonial child was bound to encounter in the
literature of the colonial language. (18)

The images of this world and his place in it implanted in a child take years to eradicate, if they
ever can be. (17)

It is the final triumph of a system of domination when the dominated start singing its virtues. /

Is t rght that a man should

abandon hs mother tongue for
someone elses? - Chnua Achebe

We never asked ourselves: how can

we enrch our [Afrcan] languages?
What was our responsblty to the
struggles of Afrcan people? (8)

Afro-European Literature
The literature it [the petty-bourgeoisie] produced in European
languages was given the identity of African literature as if there had
never been literature in African languages. (22)
This literature created, falsely and even absurdly, an English-speaking
(or French or Portuguese) African peasantry and working class, a clear
negation or falsification of the historical process and reality. (22)
Afro-European literature: literature written by Africans in European
languages (27)

African Languages

Literature, culture, philosophy carried by language

African experience proverbs, nuances of speech, folklore
Culture: mutability, certain patterns, moves, rhythms, habits, attitudes, experiences, and knowledge
that are inherited and become values and ways of life, a distinctive culture and history
(production/division of labor & relationships) (14)
Swahili, Zulu, Yoruba, Arabic, Amharic, Wolof, Hausa, Ibo, Kiswahili, Gikuyu, Luo, Luhya, Shona,
Ndebele, Kimbundu, and Lingala
These languages, these national heritages of Africa, were kept alive by the peasantry. The peasantry
saw no contradiction between speaking their own mother-tongues and belonging to a larger national or
continental geography. (23)
In fact when the peasantry and the working class were compelled by necessity or history to adopt the
language of the master, they Africanized it without any of the respect for its ancestry (23)
New African Languages: Krio in Sierra Leone, Pidgin in Nigeria (JOM)
owed their identities to the syntax and rhythms of African languages

The Destiny of Africa

The classes fighting against imperialism have to confront this threat with the higher and
more creative culture of resolute struggle They have to speak the united language of
struggle contained in each of their languages. They must discover their various tongues to
sing the song: A people united can never be defeated. (3)
I do not want to see Kenyan children growing up in that imperialist-imposed tradition of
contempt for the tools of communication developed by their communities and their history. I
want them to transcend colonial alienation. (28)
Call for revolution: ...African languages should reconnect themselves to the revolutionary
traditions of an organised peasantry and working class in Africa in their struggle to defeat
imperialism and create a higher system of democracy and socialism in alliance with all the other
peoples of the world. Unity in that struggle would ensure unity in our multi-lingual diversity.
(30)
African languages addressing themselves to the lives of the people become the enemy of a
neo-colonial state. (30)

Looking at Your Hands by Martin Carter (1951)

No!

I have learnt

I will not still my voice!

from books dear friend

I have

of men dreaming and living

too much to claim

and hungering in a room without a light

if you see me

who could not die since death was far too poor

looking at books

who did not sleep to dream, but dreamed to change

or coming to your house

the world.

or walking in the sun

know that I look for fire!

And so
if you see me
looking at your hands
listening when you speak
marching in your ranks
you must know
I do not sleep to dream, but dream to change
the world.