Adieu, Baba: Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1938 – 2025)

Written by Professor Abiodun Salawu

My scholarship in African language media derived its inspiration from the stance of the late Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o to do his creative writings in his native Gikuyu language. For many decades before he died yesterday, Ngugi did his creative writings in Gikuyu though they get translated into English for a global audience. He stated his position thus:

A language is capable to do whatever a people want it to do. You know, when the English language was dominated by Latin, there were some people who used to argue that the English language could not cope with certain utterances and so on. When the Russian language was dominated by French and German, it was said that Russian language could not express certain scientific thoughts. The Finnish language was dominated by Swedish in the Seventeenth Century until some Finnish writers decided to start writing in Finnish and discovered the richness of their language. Now, our language can develop in any way. Every language has the potentiality of developing and coping with whatever its users want it to talk about (Eyoh, 1986).

He further argued: “Since the new language as a means of communication was a product of and was reflecting the ‘real language of life’ elsewhere, it could never as spoken or written properly reflect or imitate the real life of that community. This may in part explain why technology always appears to us as slightly external, their product and not ours” (Ngugi, 1986: 1986: 116). Recognising, though, that the West European languages are the languages of power, he, nevertheless, contends:

But they are still spoken by a minority within each of the nationalities that make up these countries. The majority of the working people in Africa retain African languages. Therefore, the majority of people are excluded from the centre stage since they do not have mastery of the language of power. They are also excluded from any meaningful participation in modern discoveries. English, French and Portuguese are the languages in which the African people have been educated; for this reason, the results of our research into science, technology and of our achievements in the creative arts are stored in those languages. Thus a large portion of this vast knowledge is locked up in the linguistic prison of English, French and Portuguese. Even, the libraries are really English (or indeed French or Portuguese) language fortresses inaccessible to the majority. So, the cultivation of these languages makes for more effective communication only between the elite and the international English-speaking bourgeoisie (Ngugi, 1993: 37)

His statement above that the “the majority of people are excluded from the centre stage since they do not have mastery of the language of power” is an important reason for the work we do in our research entity, Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA), at the North-West University, South Africa. The title of the lecture was: ‘The Joycean Paradox revisited: Language Empires and Literary Identity Theft’. We identify with his crusade for the sustenance of African languages and cultures. We also identify with his concern for communication with the vast majority of our peoples through expressions in African languages, whether through literature or news media. That was the reason we invited him last year to give a public lecture in our public lecture series. He, originally, planned to come and give the lecture in-person. We guess because of his health, he later decided to do it virtually. He gave us the public lecture virtually on August 15, 2024. We had a good attendance in-person and online.

Adieu, baba, son of Africa and champion of African languages and cultures. Sleep well.

References
Eyoh, H. N. 1986. Theatre of Relevance: An Interview with Ngugi wa Thiong’o. African Theatre Review, 1(2):110 – 114

Ngugi, W. T. 1993. Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. London: James Currey.

Ngugi, W. T. 1986. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: James Currey.