The following item, seen on H-Swahili, is apparently a letter to the editor in the Daily Nation in response to Rasna Warah's column. One note about the mention in Warah's column of Gikuyu being "spoken by less than 6 million people" - Ngugi himself compared that number to the speakers of Danish, which no one scoffs at or considers so inconsequential as to not merit writing in... DZO
Don't let our languages die Published: 2007/02/01 http://www.nationmedia.com/ Africans and more so Kenyans are guilty of killing their own languages. Our leading writer, Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o idea of reclaiming our history and memories by passing on our languages to our children is right. It's a terrible mistake for parents to view their own languages as shameful and incapable of expressing intellectual ideas. They insist that their children should speak English and other foreign languages creating what Prof Ngugi calls "Linguifam" and describes as creating 'little foreigners" in our homes. This practice is thriving in most of our families. Language is not only a means of communication, it's also a way of connecting to our roots and what makes us Africans. We have subjected ourselves to modern day language slavery. We must master our own languages before learning foreign tongues. I strongly urge the Government to make compulsory the learning of Mother Tongue in the lower primary classes to prevent our languages from being archived. Though the teaching of Mother Tongue may be difficult in the towns, the Government should undertake the process in the rural areas. LEMEILOI OLE NDILAI, Kajiado. --- In [email protected], "Don Osborn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > FYI, this column from the Nairobi paper, Daily Nation, was seen on H-Swahili... DZO > > > Re-Membering and recreating Africa through language > Published: 1/29/2007 > http://www.nationmedia.com > By: RASNA WARAH > > UNTIL I HEARD HIM speak, I always thought Kenya's most celebrated literary icon, Ngugi > wa Thiong'o, was overstating the case for the revival of African languages in literature and > in daily life. In a column I wrote for the EastAfrican shortly after his much-awaited > homecoming in 2004 after 22 years in exile, I wondered whether the state of being in exile > had contributed to Ngugi's nostalgia for his mother tongue. Could it be, I asked, that the > author, feeling alone, lonely and alienated in a foreign land, hung on to the one thing - > the Gikuyu language - that connected him to his peasant roots in Limuru? Would Ngugi be > such a die-hard proponent of this language, which is spoken by less than 6 million > people, had he remained rooted in his country? Why did he not ... Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
