The Power of Babel Ch 4: Language & The Quest for Liberation

Linguistic determinism: Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: language embodies cultural metaphysics

Linguistic determinism: Language is sometimes regarded as a reservoir of culture which controls human thought & behavior So is it the case that colonial languages have dominated thinking in Africa? Linguistic determinism fell into disrepute, but has recently resurfaced in a more moderate version

Language & the colonial experience Varied according to the language of the colonizers French tended to suppress indigenous languages German/English tended to support it, and “in fact the latter policy contributed significantly to the consolidation of the Swahili language in what was then German East Africa”

Language & the colonial experience, cont’d. Kenya –British “Livingstonian” missionaries used indigenous languages –Administrations imposed English in schools to create efficient economies –Promoted Kiswahili as a pan-African language that would unify without creating equality (too much English perceived by colonizers as a potential threat)

Fanon & Linguistic alienation Linguistic domination causes neurosis/inferiority complex on the part of those who are colonized. “The boundaries of language can serve as important identitarian markers of the self and the other; denial of the self can easily be made public by a shift from one language to another.”

Fanon & Linguistic alienation, cont’d. Use of a given language signals a relationship to others “When the additional language is also the language of the oppressor, the world view that it implicitly expresses is often accepted as more valid than one’s own.” “A language of the oppressor may influence the cognitive and social orientation of the oppressed only if that person is alienated in the first place”

Effects of colonialism: Elevated colonizers’ culture and debased “native” culture Colonized people accepted colonizers’ culture and rejected their own, thus interiorizing racial stereotypes of the colonizers, but the African can never attain a European identity, and is thus trapped in a sterile colonial culture and cut off from Africanity.

Language & the intellectuals “The intellectuals, therefore, are the most alienated party because they yearn to be the most assimilated.”

Beyond determinism Need to strive for disalienation by rejecting the “idea that language, as a reservoir of culture, is a determiner of thought and world views.” Instead understand language as “an instrument of communication and rational thought and not a key to enlightenment and civilization.”

Beyond determinism, cont’d. Control language rather than being controlled by language The colonial language can be purged of its oppressive meanings by forces of liberation Algeria -- first saw use of French as treason, then French acquired values associated with Arabic and was accepted. “The oppressed must seek to overcome their state of alienation.”

Beyond determinism, cont’d. Africans need to liberate the languages of their oppressors and also to focus on indigenous languages, and help to reduce intellectual dependence on the West But major intellectual works are not available in African languages African intellectuals still need European languages in order to learn and to communicate