Politics of language and the task of ‘re-membering’ Africa

The debate on the politics of language in East Africa had gone cold until two recent events rekindled it. One was the move to make Swahili an optional course in Kenyan schools, at a time when usage of this African language has been growing exponentially across the globe.

The other instance was when King Charles made a state visit to Kenya. Thereafter, there was heated debate on the fact that the King expressed regret but came short of apologising for the atrocities Kenyans faced at the hands of British colonialists, especially during the state of emergency in Kenya (from 1952 to 1957).

I was particularly drawn to a reaction by one angry Briton who, when asked whether the King should have apologised, went ballistic: “Apologise for what? They should be grateful that we gave them the English language!” This, I’m sure, had many across the world rolling their eyes.

These instances rekindled a debate that dates back to the 1974 UNESCO Conference in Zanzibar, Tanzania, where prominent African literary figures met and presented differing perspectives on language use in literature.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o argued passionately for writing in indigenous African languages as mediums of expression and cultural preservation. He believed this would empower African communities and reclaim cultural identity from colonial influences.

For his part, Chinua Achebe argued that embracing multiple languages would enrich African literary traditions and enhance global communication and understanding. He held that proficiency in European languages did not necessitate the abandonment of indigenous languages but rather complemented them; that we would be all the richer if, in addition to our mother tongues, we learned English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, and so on.

Indeed, that many of us can express ourselves competently and competitively in some of these ‘foreign’ tongues puts us in good stead economically, but this does not mean we should ditch our own languages.

Actually, I would have thought the debate on the ‘politricks’ of language a bit trite, until I found myself wincing the other day when a parent, at a Nairobi restaurant, smiled proudly as he engaged his child in terribly broken English, obviously hoping to impress everyone around. It was almost comical that the adult’s English was more grammatically malnourished than the child’s.

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Fine, before you start arguing ‘My language, my choice,’ come with me. And pray tell, does it really make sense to deny an innocent child the right to know his or her people’s language only to end up teaching him or her a comically fake version of a foreign tongue?

This is not just a matter of simple choice. Those who grew up in the African countryside will agree with me that they could easily and exhaustively capture in speech the local flora and fauna, including the cultural tapestries of their communities, a feat that one could and still cannot manage in a foreign language. Unless, of course, one has chosen to exclusively embrace foreign – and other imagined – realities.

Personally, I remember the complex kiembu names by which we referred to the many local plants we boys fed the rabbits. I doubt these greens ever grew in England, let alone whether they have names in the King’s language.

As linguists will tell you, language is a carrier of culture. A community assigns abstract symbols and signs that we call ‘words’ to what they see in their immediate environment. These words then become a medium for expressing the reality from what our politicians call ‘kwa ground.’ Remember Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

We may speak the King’s language, but our childhood did not unfold amidst the roses, daffodils, aspidistras, jasmines, bluebells, lavender, primroses, foxgloves, honeysuckles, snowdrops, lily of the valley, hydrangeas, forget-me-nots, and whatnot.

To be sure, some of these flowers and other plants found their way into Africa, but to date, our languages are silent on what we should call these plants.

It is for this reason that, where language is concerned, I believe the more the merrier. So, I reserve my right to learn and teach my Kiembu to dizzying idiomatic heights, while still striving to further unravel the mysteries of the western languages.

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And while this is no apologia for Ngugi’s decision to write in Gikuyu, I think his standpoint on the language of Africans has widely been interpreted rather simplistically.

The way to go, I suppose, is to promote our own languages, as language goes beyond being a mere, neutral medium of communication to become a key weapon in global power politics.

We need to view our people’s tongues with the same pride as that British man who retorted on a European TV station that the rest of the world should be happy that Britain bequeathed to them their ‘great’ language.

In simple terms, privileging other languages over one’s own is a form of cultural self-denigration. The kind of obsessive self-loathing that we see in Toundi, the young boy in Ferdinand Oyono’s classic novel, Houseboy, who insults his own father and goes to live with one foreigner after another. Poor boy, by the time the gods are done with Toundi, which is when we find him, he is rotting even before he dies.

Indeed, scholars and theorists agree that all languages are equal, as they are able to carry the weight of their users’ experiences.
In Language, Thought and Reality American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf shows that language profoundly shapes thought and perception. It influences how individuals understand and interact with the world.

Whorf is best known for the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which he developed alongside his mentor Edward Sapir, and which posits that the structure of a language affects its speakers' perception and categorisation of experience. So, can we really see a people’s experience from a foreign lens? Go figure!

In my view, we should celebrate linguistic diversity and amplify marginalised voices. This not only fosters a deeper appreciation for cultural identities but also reaffirms the interconnectedness of language, thought and cultural heritage in shaping global narratives.

For his part, Walt Whitman emphasized the role of language in expressing deep emotions, individualism and even the mysteries of the human spirit. His own poetry celebrates the beauty of language and its capacity to convey profound truths about humanity. Folks, languages are beautiful!

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The father of modern linguistics himself, Noam Chomsky, suggests that all human languages share a common underlying structure (universal grammar). He taught us that all humans are born with an innate ability to understand and produce language, which he called the "language acquisition device".

Very soon perhaps we’ll stumble on the link between Chomsky’s generative grammar and the ability of today’s artificial intelligence models to master the intricacies of language as seen through such platforms as ChatGPT.

Swiss semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure illuminated for us the relationships between words and their meanings. He distinguished between a language structure and actual usage of the language, revealing that words in a language acquire meaning only in relation to the things they are used to refer to.

This problematises the notion that one can successfully ditch their language while still living in the catchment area where that language evolved. Or that one can fully express themselves in a language whose words were coined to capture an alien reality.

Of course that is not to say that you can’t study and master a foreign language. You very well can, as human language is such that it can discuss even what has never existed.

The point here is that it bears understanding that a language that evolves in a certain geospatial and cultural milieu is best placed to exhaustively carry the realities of its users. 

This leads us to French philosopher Michel Foucault, who studied historical discourses and found that language and knowledge are often used as levers of power and control over others. To him, language constructs and reinforces knowledge, norms and social hierarchies.

In a word, how we view our languages could well be the way we view ourselves. We should, therefore, jealously guard our own languages like that agitated Briton who feels the world is eternally indebted to the land of the King for gifting us all the old tongue of the Celts, the Old Norse and the Anglo-Saxons.

The writer is an editorial and publishing consultant; [email protected]