Renowned experts in the field of African languages and literatures have re-emphasized the relevance of literary archives in serving Africa’s indigenous knowledge production.
This reflection was part of the several others made at the last edition of the Toyin Falola Interview Series on the theme: ‘Languages and Archives in Knowledge Production About Africa’. The interaction was held on Sunday and viewed on various social media platforms, television and online radio platforms.
The panel, led by the celebrated historian, Professor Toyin Falola, comprised of very eminent archivists, linguists and culture enthusiasts such as Ghirmai Negash, professor of English and African literature and also the Director of the African Studies Program in Ohio University, he also founded and chaired the Department of Eritrean Languages and Literature at the University of Asmara; Ngom Fallou, professor of Anthropology and former Director of the African Studies Centre at Boston University, with research interest in the interaction of African and non-African languages; Abiodun Salawu, professor of Journalism, Communication and Media Studies, and Director of the research entity: Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA) at the North-West University, South Africa; Ousseina Alidou, a distinguished professor of Humane Letters in the School of Arts and Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick; and John Mugane, professor of African Languages and Cultures at Harvard University and the Director of the African Language Program.
Speaking on the relevance of African literature to the continent’s knowledge production, Professor Negash stated that “Literature has benefits in Africa, particularly I think in about texts like Things Fall Apart. It is probably a belated response to Hegel, right. I was saying Hegel considered Africa as cultureless, story-less, civilisation-less, as a boring place. If you look at Things Fall Apart, in Achebe responding to these questions, there is discussion about religion, governance, about very sophisticated kind of negotiating the nuances of gender. I would like also to invoke our great Ngugi from Kenya. He was the one also who gave us this kind of counter-discourse. Well, I just mentioned there are epistemological figures, he is one of the epistemological figures. He gave us the notion of decolonising the mind. He was among the first who started speaking back. Even probably, chronology is always kind of risky, people like the great Palestinian thinker, Edward Said, wrote these major books and interventions, writing back. Ngugi’s writings, theoretical as well literary, made a huge contribution. The role of literature in the production of knowledge is enormous. It is a little unfortunate with language. With the exception of Ethiopia and Eritrea, those countries have very long tradition of writing in their own languages. Probably in some parts of Nigeria, I know that there is literature in Yoruba and other languages, and Swahili of course.
“The attempt, the push, should be using these languages for literally purpose as well. So I would say there is literature in European languages, we are not going to dismiss that, it has played enormous role, it continues to really play a huge role, I’m thinking of people like Adichie who are contributing to the decolonial conversation in the diaspora as well as in the continent. But we also need the local indigenous African languages to be used for literary purposes.”
Professor Falola hinted that some prominent African literary texts are yet to gain local relevance as a result of translation issues. To this Professor Ngom queried such linguist paradox. “How is it that to become an expert of Yoruba, you are trained to speak English? Can you be taken seriously if you are claiming to be an expert of France without being able to read or speak French? So I think this double standard really needs to change, and the way to do it really is a fundamental reform of our educational system. It doesn’t mean rejecting all the languages. What it means is incorporating these languages and these cultures in our curriculum for several reasons. It creates new skills that are much needed to engage African traditions and languages in knowledge production. It can be used to create new social mobilities, resources,” he stated
On her part, Professor Alidou came hard on the false representation that African women were not instrumental in the transmission and preservation of African epistemologies, noting that African women contributed in no small measures to the production of epistemologies in their indigenous literacy systems.
For Professor Salawu, intellectualizing indigenous African languages holds more potential than would be expected, just as he added that this has become very critical and relevant. Professor Mugane however warned that except the needful is done and very quickly, many indigenous African languages may disappear sooner than expected.