Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Making Sense of the Western Encounter
- 3 Cultural Identity and Development
- 4 Political Economy and the Culture of Underdevelopment
- 5 The Culture of Politics
- 6 Ethnic Nationalism
- 7 Islam, Religious Identity, and Politics
- 8 Traditional Religions in Modern Africa
- 9 English or Englishes? The Politics of Language and the Language of Politics
- 10 Gender and Culture in Old and New Africa
- 11 Africa, the Homeland: Diasporic Cultures
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - English or Englishes? The Politics of Language and the Language of Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Making Sense of the Western Encounter
- 3 Cultural Identity and Development
- 4 Political Economy and the Culture of Underdevelopment
- 5 The Culture of Politics
- 6 Ethnic Nationalism
- 7 Islam, Religious Identity, and Politics
- 8 Traditional Religions in Modern Africa
- 9 English or Englishes? The Politics of Language and the Language of Politics
- 10 Gender and Culture in Old and New Africa
- 11 Africa, the Homeland: Diasporic Cultures
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
“FOLLOW THE RIVER AND FIND THE SEA.”
—A SWAHILI PROVERBThe telling has not been easy. One has to convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own. One has to convey the various shades and omission of a certain thought movement that looks maltreated in an alien language. I use the word “alien,” yet English is not really an alien language to us. It is the language of our intellectual make-up. We are all instinctively bilingual, many of us writing in our own language and in English… . We cannot write like the English. We should not. We cannot write only as Indians. We have grown to look at the large world as part of us. Our method of expression therefore has to be a dialect which will someday prove to be distinctive and colorful as the Irish or the American. Time alone will justify it.
The focus of this chapter is on the use of the English language and its intersections with culture, elitism, and power. Most of the broad statements should be applicable to the majority of African countries, although the data is drawn from Nigeria. To follow the use of English in Africa is like following a river that may lead to a sea. We are dealing with a situation of linguistic and cultural diversity—while English is the official language, the majority of the population uses a host of other languages to conduct their various daily activities.
As with the rise of an educated elite, we are dealing with a “new” phenomenon dating only from the mid-nineteenth century. The English language, in its association with the educated elite, developed slowly. For most of the twentieth century it was a language of the minority and it was a powerful vehicle to express nationalism during the colonial era. As the majority of the population was disempowered by the inability to use the English language, they formulated alternative strategies of survival, which included the evolution of a new form of English, the Nigerian pidgin or “rotten English.” Thus, the space became crowded with the use of not one English, but various Englishes.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Power of African Cultures , pp. 224 - 249Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2003