The Language question: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, ‘The Language of African Literature’, in Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Decolorising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (London: James Currey, 1981), pp. 4–9.

Abstract

Imperialism continues to control the economy, politics, and cultures of Africa. The contention started a hundred years ago when in 1884 the capitalist powers of Europe sat in Berlin and carved an entire continent with a multiplicity of peoples, cultures, and languages into different colonies. The Berlin-drawn division under which Africa is still living was obviously economic and political, despite the claims of bible-wielding diplomats, but it was also cultural. Berlin in 1884 saw the division of Africa into the different languages of the European powers. English, like French and Portuguese, was assumed to be the natural language of literary and even political mediation between African people in the same nation and between nations in Africa and other continents. The title of the 'Conference of African Writers of English Expression' automatically excluded those who wrote in African languages.