( Ken &Gloria)
or - (still a little short on poetry)
as the Professor of Buckingham Palace English (having not spent any time near the place)
would much prefer,
"Birds of the same feather"
I think Malcolm X was punning on his name Malcolm Little
when he said about some upstart who still doesn't know any better:
" They taught you little"
On Thursday, 23 March 2017 20:28:13 UTC+1, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:
...Ken,
I certainly agree with you in terms of the content of the BBC.
G
Professor Gloria EmeagwaliGloria Emeagwali's Documentaries onAfrica and the African Diaspora8608322815 Phone8608322804 Fax
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com > on behalf of Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2017 11:22 PM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ³An advice, ² ³a good news²: Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian EnglishHi Gloria
I didn't actually applaud Israel for resurrecting Hebrew—just noted it, and ditto for Ireland. You are mistaking recording the situation for applauding it. Nor am I discouraging anyone; but examining the question.
If I have a position, it isn't on languages per se, but skepticism on the role of language as embracing some authentic cultural values.
I would try to sustain African languages, but am skeptical that state interventions are meaningful in respect of language usage. I think languages change through use, not through dictum.
Most of all, I was not trying to avoid the question, but examining, thinking about its implications. Translations and adaptations are central issues for my field, and their implications aren't obvious
If you want to keep us focused on larger state policies, that's fine. But I am not trying to evade anything; just thinking out loud
I do feel strongly about what I wrote concerning the bbc.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/
people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@
googlegroups.com > on behalf of "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Date: Wednesday 22 March 2017 at 16:31
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ³An advice, ² ³a good news²: Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
Diversionary tactics, Ken. We are not talking about content but structure, so to speak.
Besides, you cannot applaud one country for resurrecting a dead language, and discourage others from fully recognizing, utilizing and celebrating their living indigenous languages. Spurious arguments about translation, translatability, viability, accessibility and what not, have limited value once you take into consideration the self-sustainably large population numbers we are dealing with.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
8608322815 Phone
8608322804 Fax
From: usaafric...@
googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com > on behalf of Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2017 9:15 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ³An advice, ² ³a good news²: Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
This is nice enough. but more than the language is at stake here. I've often felt the heavy hand of disproportionate and even epistemic violence when the major western news services, like cnn and even the sacred bbc, are the global news sources, and those news programs generated in other locations, especially in the global south, are not broadcast in the global north.
The bbc presents itself as an absolute truth, and it is so so easy to accept their take on the news as if it were above regionalism. Only when they start reporting on a particular story in a particular locale that you know well, that their pressure to take their word as absolute truth can be questioned. I've had that experience more than once in their broadcasting news about Rwanda or the congo that was wrong, and when their approach of denigrating opposing views seemed highly obnoxious.
News goes one-way on the global streams.
I am glad that their Africa, and india, services will include more languages. But if it is the same old bbc news going in to a region, then the problem of eurocentrism will not be resolved, but in a sense made even worse since their "authorized" take will assume a priority.
Gloria's posting of alternative news sources actually becomes all the more important in that regard.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/
people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@
googlegroups.com > on behalf of Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Date: Wednesday 22 March 2017 at 05:16
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Cc: "tunde....@gmail.com" <tunde....@gmail.com>, "john....@uwimona.edu.jm" <john....@uwimona.edu.jm>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ³An advice, ² ³a good news²: Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
Thanks for sharing the news that the BBC will now be broadcasting in Igbo and Yoruba in addition to Hausa. This means our efforts over the decades has not been in vain. It means when I die it will be with a smile across my lips.
Elegbaras (the broadcaster deity shared by both Yoruba and Igbo in Ifa worship) name be praised!
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Date: 22/03/2017 07:36 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ³An advice, ² ³a good news²: Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
"We live by sharing across culture, and culture breathes when it can reach outside its own closely confined world." Harrow
Agreed. Can English not be translated into Swahili? Translation is a multilateral process. For wider dissemination, Ngugi could have translated into Chinese as well.
I don't get your point about Ramaka's Carmen Gei. Is an adaptation the same as a translation?
Yesterday I discovered that the BBC will be broadcasting in Yoruba , Igbo and Pidgin this year, in addition to Hausa. I am happy that they were able to find scholars of indigenous African languages at Unilag etc to help in this project, and did not have to go to Mars to get help.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
8608322815 Phone
8608322804 Fax
From: usaafric...@
googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com > on behalf of Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2017 7:39 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: tunde....@gmail.com; john....@uwimona.edu.jm
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ³An advice, ² ³a good news²: Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
Ken.
You stated that if Soyinka did not translate Fagunwa into English it would remain known only to Yoruba readers. Not so. There is now an army of Igbo-Yoruba offsprings who are products of inter ethnic marriages in Lagos, some of whom may become translators and produce Igbo translations given the right level of motivation.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 21/03/2017 13:39 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@
googlegroups.com >Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ³An advice, ² ³a good news²: Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
Hi all
I'd like to refer to moses's fourth point, the question of translation, so that cultural production not remain local.
As I work in literature and cinema, that issue is and has been for a long time a central question in African studies. Achebe vs ngugi.
Ngugi advocated writing in African languages, so as to remain true to the cultural, epistemological values.
Why not? One of my favorite writers among contemporary African authors, boris boubacar diop, opted to begin writing in wolof, and produced a magnificent novel, doomi golo.
On the other hand, if ngugi turned to writing in kikuyu, please note he then turned around and translated it into English for wider dissemination. Are there any novels or plays by ngugi that he has not had translated and published in English?
Soyinka translated a fagunwa novel—had that not happened, fagunwa would remain known only to Yoruba speakers. That is no worse than having Shakespeare known only to English speakers; but when the germans translated Shakespeare into german, that gave a tremendous boost to his expansion onto the world stage. Similarly when freud was translated into French, that enabled lacanian analysis (and the training for fanon) to become disseminated widely. When Lacan became translated into English, film studies and feminist studies turned deeply toward psychoanalytical approaches. Should I go on?
In film studies, carmela garritano distinguished between local twi films made in Ghana for local audiences. Had the films all remained in twi, they would have remained confined to accra and its region. But filmmakers like Shirley frimpong-manso wanted to make films that could be distributed world-wide, she turned to English, as well as to what Ghanaians termed professional looks, to polished post-production, as we have now seen in afolayan's films
Now, folks, if afolayan's films did not have English, or if there were no sub-titles, we who don't speak the languages he employs in his films would be at a loss.
Subtitles, translations, these are how works enter into the global waves of culture. Not everyone wants to do this: but if you and I were to actually sit and talk about African literature, we have to have a text that we share in common, and that means sharing a language.
Let the author decide what language works for him or her in writing a novel. But he or she can't control what languages others know. You can write for your own community, or reach out to others. And if you make a film that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions, you'd better find a way to reach the audience. That might well entail using hausa in northern Nigerian. And if your ambition is to go further, it has to be translated, subtitled, or dubbed.
Lastly, the original almost always is better than the translation. Much is always lost in subtitling. But a great translator can create something even better than the original.
As example might be seen in the adaptation of carmen by jo ramaka, his film karmen gei. I wouldn't want to ask which is better, ramaka or bizet's version: both are wonderful.
And of course, shakespeare's own plays were based on earlier written texts as well. Texts written in other languages. Without translation there'd have been no Shakespeare either. We live by sharing across culture, and culture breathes when it can reach outside its own closely confined world.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/
people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@
googlegroups.com > on behalf of "meoc...@gmail.com" <meoc...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Date: Monday 20 March 2017 at 11:30
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Cc: "tunde....@gmail.com" <tunde....@gmail.com>, "john....@uwimona.edu.jm" <john....@uwimona.edu.jm>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ³An advice, ² ³a good news²: Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
It is sad to see this edifying discussion degenerate into this, but a few quick points preceded by a declaration:
I have been following the thread and the contributions of Farooq and Ken have captured by own position so excellently that I saw no need to contribute. After reading Oga Falola's penultimate post, however, I feel that a few submissions would be in order.
1. Despite the effort of the mild-mannered and polite scholar, Ken Harrow, to explain that the notion of English being the property of the British or of Euro-America is wrong, some responses have continued to proceed from that erroneous, ironically neocolonial idea. Falola challenged us to name countries that have developed by operationalizing the languages of other people, implying that English is not Nigerians' property, that it belongs to others. It is only if you believe this foundational fallacy that you'd believe that when Nigerians master English, they are embracing someone else's linguistic heritage and abandoning their own--the largely outmoded argument about about linguistic imperialism. It should be self-evident that the notion of linguistic imperialism dissolves considerably when the language in question is now democratized and domesticated in several locales and when the original possessors of that language have lost control of it while those who a
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