AFRICAN LITERATURE AND THE QUESTION OF LANGUAGE
African scholars have been in a debate on “which language should be used in African literature? should we use foreign languages or African languages in African Literature?”.
In fact, up to date there is no agreement over the question of language to be used in African Literature. This is because there are some scholars who propose the use of African Languages in African Literature like Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and there are those who prefer the use of foreign languages like Chinua Achebe.
IMPORTANCE OF USING LOCAL LANGUAGES IN AFRICAN LITERATURE?
In Africa, local language is the language used by African natives, indigenous languages are such as Swahili, kikuyu, Yoruba language and others.
There is advantage of using local languages rather than foreign languages such as English. the following are the advantages.
(i) It is the way of expressing African culture. Since language is the sign of culture, then local language helps to express culture of a given society because it may involve cultural expressions or cultural words such as idioms, proverbs and so on.
(ii) It is the way of promoting our languages. since literary works are not
language became familiar in the world because of art of writing.
(iii) It is the way of developing our languages. The art of writing helps a particular language to develop because writers invent various expressions such as figures of speech and other literary devices. Therefore, vocabularies become very familiar.
(iv) It is comprehensive or easy to understand. The local people will easily understand the works because they are very familiar with their language. For example, in Tanzania, literary works written in Swahili language has a great number of readers as compared to those written in English.
(v) It encourages local people to engage in writing. The use of local language encourages local people to write various works of art because people are very familiar with the language.
LIMITATIONS OF USING AFRICAN LANGUAGES IN AFRICAN LITERATURE.
(i) Lack of literacy in the African languages. Many African languages are not in written form. With this situation, it becomes difficult to write African literature in African languages as most of them are not in written form.
(ii) The problem of publication. Most publishing houses are reluctant to publish works written in local languages because they have no experts in these languages who can do the necessary proofreading and editing the works to make sure that they are error-free.
(iii) Complex linguistic situation in Africa (multilingualism). It is estimated that there are 2035 African languages now. This situation is possibly responsible for the lack of the government policies that could encourage the use of African languages in African literature.
(iv) Absence of government language policies. There is no government policies that could encourage the use of African
v) Lack of promotion of African languages in employment and education system. There is no African country where a credit pass in an African language is a criterion in the civil service. With this situation, African languages will not be maximally utilized in literature.
(vi) The cost of developing African languages. To develop a language is capital intensive. It is therefore to develop all languages of Africa. Literature in them is therefore difficult.
LITERATURE AND THE SOCIETY.
Literature acts as a mirror of social realities.
i.e. It draws materials from the society and not from the vacuum. Social reality refers to common or relevant issues taking place in our societies. It is therefore true to say that literature reflects social reality. This is because it reveals some issues happening in our societies as follows.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LITERATURE AND THE SOCIETY.
(i) Literature reflects misunderstandings or conflicts in our societies. In our societies conflicts become inevitable since they are part and parcel of life; this makes literary artists to reveal this reality in their works in order to make people take actions.
(ii) Literature reveals or reflects social classes existing in our societies. In any society classes are inevitable because people differ in terms of economy. Therefore, most of literary works reveal this issue which is very relevant. For example, in the poem “Building the Nation” by Henry Barlow, a persona, who is the driver belongs to a lower class while the Permanent Secretary belongs to the upper class.
(iii) Literature reveals how people liberate themselves from oppression or injustices. In various literary works we see the way people are struggling for their rights by encouraging other people to unite and protest against injustices like in the poem “If We Must Die” by Claude Mc kay. Such kind of oppression and injustices exist in our societies.
(iv) Literature reflects the issue of disloyalty or betrayal among people in our societies. In any society, there are people who show the lack of loyalty to others. This is revealed in various literary works.
(v) Literature reveals some cultural aspects in our societies. For instance, African writers have tried to reveal some aspects which are outdated so as to educate our societal people, such outdated cultural aspects include early marriage, forced marriage, tribalism, witchcraft beliefs and female circumcision. All these exist in the society and literature points them out.
(vi) Literature reflects unevenly distribution of wealth in our societies. This is sometimes caused by nepotism of some political leaders who tend to favor the development in places where they come from. These are always revealed by some artists in their works of art.
(vii) Literature reveals irresponsibility of some leaders in our society. There are some leaders who are irresponsible in the society instead they engage in the misuse of the public fund, all these are revealed in literary works as it in “Building the Nation” by Henry Barlow.
(viii) Literature reveals and expresses racial segregation and exploitation committed by some members in a society. Such kind of injustices are revealed in various literary works like in the poem “Ballad of The Landlord” by Langston Hughes.
