Choosing Your Language

>>I think what may have struck me the hardest is that he got his university to change the "English" department to the "Literature" department.<<

That caught my eye too, although I looked at it in a different way. That is, I was thinking that "English" made sense in English-speaking countries, and that elsewhere it might be "French Department" or "Spanish Department" or whatever. Because literature is made of language. If we're getting "English" departments in countries where English isn't the native language, though, that's a colonialism problem. And that's where it becomes important that someone is writing in his own vernacular, Gikuyu in this case.

>>As a holder of an English/Education degree, this has resonance with me. I may put a sign on my door at school, re-labeling my room "Literature and Writing."<<

Go for it. We each of us get one vote in how a language is to be used -- but some of us speak in ways that we are heard widely. Ngugi wa Thiongo to Nnedi Okorafor to me to you to your students, passing ideas along and thinking about what they mean, what we want them to mean, what kind of world we want to live in. Because sometimes, the world is created by the act of describing it.

Vote with your words. They have wings.

>>Curious, I looked on amazon and found his books in English.
Who translated them?<<

I don't know. Publishers often make those arrangements.

>>And just what ~is~ his purpose?<<

I think that he wants the Gikuyu language to survive, and to show how it expresses the ideas of its speakers. It's a way of encouraging people to take it more seriously.

>>He doesn't just write in Gikuyu, he publishes in Gikuyu.
Is it a freedom of expression thing?
Or an ethnic/nationalist thing?
And might those two things be the same thing?<<

Some aspects of both, perhaps.

>>Whatever country he might live in,
an author who publishes in Macedonian is doing much more than telling a story,
but particularly so if he lives in Greece.
Likewise an author living in Spain who publishes in Basque
or a US author who publishes in Lakota.<<

Sooth. There are a handful of publishers that put out Native American works, but almost nothing in the original languages -- it's nearly all in English, except for language guides. I think there might be a Cherokee newspaper. I know there are a few books, especially children's books for language learners, in Cherokee and Lakota. But I don't know of anyone doing novels in those languages. That would be so awesome.

I'm often frustrated because Native Americans complain about being portrayed as a dead or dying culture, which granted is a real problem ... but then I look at the NA literature by and for NA folks and the characters are, well, a wreck. They manifest the very real problems of lingering genocide: alcoholism, unemployment, homelessness, etc. I haven't seen stories about successful, healthy NA characters come out of that culture, and I would really like to. It's not like there are zero role models for that -- there are dancers and musicians and others who seem to be doing fine. Some of the poetry is more positive, though it tends to focus on nature and spirituality rather than personal narratives.

>>Have you noticed there's a Nobel Peace Prize,
but not a Nobel Agitation Prize?<<

Yes, and I think that's a good thing. War should be a last resort, not something to idolize. Peace is far more laudable, and for that matter, more challenging.

>>But in promoting the use of Gikuyu,
he's agitating, and in awarding him the prize,
the Nobel committee is condoning that agitation.<<

I do not think that writing/publishing in a vernacular or rare language is necessarily agitating. That depends on the content. If it is considered to be agitating and is suppressed as such, regardless of content, that's a clear sign of not just oppression but cultural genocide. Attempts to stamp out a language are evil.

>>I wish I knew for sure that this was a good thing.
Opposing a repressive government is wonderful,
but if this leads to civil war?<<

That decision is up to the people living with the repressive government. It's their choice to submit or resist, and how to do so. Government always has some aspect of consent from the government, whether it is officially acknowledged or not; even tyrants can be overthrown if people get desperate enough to revolt en masse. War should be an absolute last resort, but it is often preferred to obliteration or slavery.

>>It's my understanding that English is used in India
as a common language because adopting any other language
as the national standard language
would be establishing the supremacy of one ethnic group
over the others.<<

English and Hindi both serve that purpose, but yes, English is increasingly popular because Hindi already has a bad reputation for overshadowing smaller languages and causing cultural friction. Either they haven't realized that English has the same problem from a different base, or they don't care because the friction is less than Hindi causes. If ever there was a place that needed a real auxlang, India would be it.

>>Publishing work in a Native American language
would probably limit it to a very small market,
although it should be cost-effective to print
two editions, publishing being what it is these days.<<

Yeah, some of the NA publishers have always done small runs of pamphlets and things that are cheap to produce. What I would really love to see would be half-and-half books, with the original language on one side and the same section in English on the facing page. As for market size, Cherokee has 12,000-22,000 speakers and Lakota has 8000-9000. And those are among the livelier native languages surviving; many are down under three digits or even lower. But Cherokee in particular has been pushing hard for language survival, so there are people who'd buy Cherokee material for that purpose.

>>Ayn Rand talks about destroying the myth of Robin Hood,
and that always annoyed me until I read a Micky Mouse
story about the magic grinder, and realized that what she's talking about
is transcending the Reservation Mentality,
or the Plantation Mentality,
or The Social Security Mentality;
whatever particulars apply in a situation...<<

Ayn Rand has too much of a "devil take the hindmost" philosophy for me to be comfortable with. I like the legend of Robin Hood because he reminds people that it's not okay for lazy, powerful people to squeeze their subordinates to death. Someone will always fight back.

>>but it's not the "Stand up and fight" aspect of Robin Hood
she wanted to destroy; most of her protags are that type.
What she was ranting about in this instance
was the willingness of so many to wait for someone else to stand up for them.<<

Ah, that makes much more sense in this context! It's the kind of thing I consistently tend to miss, because I'm so assertive myself. Thanks for explaining.

I agree, those are both good points.