The Power of Babel: Language and Governance in the African Experience
Linguists estimate that there are currently nearly 2,000 languages in Africa, a staggering figure that is belied by the relatively few national languages. While African national politics, economics, and law are all conducted primarily in the colonial languages, the cultural life of the majority of citizens is conducted in a bewildering Babel of local and regional dialects, making language itself the center of debates over multiculturalism, gender studies, and social theory. In The Power of Babel, the noted Africanist scholar Ali Mazrui and linguist Alamin Mazrui explore this vast territory of African language.
The Power of Babel is one of the first comprehensive studies of the complex linguistic constellations of Africa. It draws on Ali Mazrui's earlier work in its examination of the "triple heritage" of African culture, in which indigenous, Islamic, and Western traditions compete for influence. In bringing the idea of the triple heritage to language, the Mazruis unravel issues of power, culture, and modernity as they are embedded in African linguistic life. The first section of the book takes a global perspective, exploring such issues as the Eurocentrism of much linguistic scholarship on Africa; part two takes an African perspective on a variety of issues from the linguistically disadvantaged position of women in Africa to the relation of language policy and democratic development; the third section presents a set of regional studies, centering on the Swahili language's exemplification of the triple heritage.The Power of Babel unites empirical information with theories of nationalism and pluralism—among others—to offer the richest contextual account of African languages to date. |
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Common terms and phrases
acquired administration African American African countries African languages African nations Afrikaans Afro-ethnic languages Afro-Islamic languages Afro-Western languages Ali Mazrui Amharic Anglophone Arabic language areas assimilation Baganda Bantu became become bilingual British century Christian civilization colonial communication Congo continued counter-penetration cultural democracy democratic diaspora East Africa economic elite English and Kiswahili English language ethnic languages Eurocentric European languages example factor Fanon favour French language Gikuyu global Hausa heritage identity impact imperial language indigenous languages integration Islamic Kenya Kiswahili language policy languages in Africa lingua franca linguistic nationalism major Mazrui missionaries Muslim Nairobi national language nationalist native speakers Ngugi official language oral pan-African parliament partly pidgin political population post-colonial president promotion racial regarded religion role schools script Semitic social society Somali sometimes South Africa speak spread Swahili Swahili language Tanzania tradition Uganda universities urban vernacular West Western languages women words
Popular passages
Page 27 - The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
Page 53 - It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world* is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.
Page 59 - Every colonized people - in other words, every people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality - finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation; that is, with the culture of the mother country. The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country's cultural standards. He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle.
Page 57 - The Negro of the Antilles will be proportionately whiter - that is, he will come closer to being a real human being - in direct ratio to his mastery of the French language...
Page 60 - This culture, once living and open to the future, becomes closed, fixed in the colonial status, caught in the yoke of oppression.
Page 53 - Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world...
Page 24 - My quarrel with the English language has been that the language reflected none of my experience. But now I began to see the matter another way.... Perhaps the language was not my own because I had never attempted to use it. had only learned to imitate it. If this were so, then it might be made to bear the burden of my experience if I could find the stamina to challenge it, and me, to such a test.
Page 39 - To have it, and to feel it, is the only way to end it. If you fail to claim it or give it up too soon, you will merely be cheated, by other classes and by other nations.
Page 58 - The native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values.
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Power of Babel: Language and Governance in the African Experience |
| Authors | Ali A. Mazrui, Alamin M. Mazrui |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press, 1998 |
| ISBN | 0226514293, 9780226514291 |
| Length | 228 pages |
| Subjects |
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Foreign Language Study / African Languages Language Arts & Disciplines / Alphabets & Writing Systems Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural Social Science / Anthropology / General Social Science / General |
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