I used to take unqualified pride in my spoken English, having had English as my first language, had all my education in English and had two degrees in the language as well as taught the language in a department of English and Literature, all in an English speaking country, until I arrived to study in London. I observed that the English people could not understand me at times and I had to train myself to understand some of their speech. I tried to teach English once at a school for foreign language learners only to be politely informed by the administrator that the students come for the English accent. I got the point quickly.
While studying at SOAS in London, I met this Caucasian teacher and his student who conversed in the most casual manner in fluent Hausa. I have forgotten the number of African languages another of my Caucasian teachers at SOAS told me he was fluent in, in both speaking and writing.
The scholar who is able to master a foreign language and study the owners of that language seems to have foothold on the academic ladder in the West. Some of the most sophisticated work in Sanskrit texts is being done by Caucasian scholars, such as the wonderful work of the English scholars Mark Dyczkowski or Alexis Sanderson. These are both associated with Oxford as student and teacher but spent years in India studying with traditional masters. Today no one studying these fields in which they are experts can avoid them. I expect many, if not most Indians can not read Sanskrit but these men not only translate the most sophisticated Sanskrit texts, they assimilate, integrate and expound on entire libraries of literature in the language.
The US scholars Paul Mueller-Ortega and Douglas Renfrew Brooks have even taken their scholarship further in establishing themselves as teachers of this spirituality to aspirants who want to live the spiritual tradition.
The sheer wealth of knowledge available in classical African cognitive systems and other aspects of culture makes it ironic when Africans struggle to imitate the West uncritically.
thanks
toyin
On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 7:36 PM, Obododimma Oha <obodooha@gmail.com> wrote:
"When I attend some Igbo community meetings with predominant semi-literate membership, I find the Igbo members making strenuous and sometimes embarrassing efforts to communicate in English. The minutes of their meetings are written and read in very bad English, too, but they don't mind, for English, to them, is English, and a bad English at least allows them to belong to modernity. If one has to intervene to correct the errors in such use of English, then the meeting would have to deal with serious personality conflicts and probably take a whole day. So, the minutes and bye laws are packaged and stored in bad English. "
Read the full text of " Cutting the Native Tongue According to the Imagined Limits of Its Powers: Resistance to the Use of Igbo in Written Formal Communications" at:-- Obododimma.
--
*Obododimma Oha*
http://udude.wordpress.com/
(*Associate Professor of Cultural Semiotics & Stylistics*)
Dept. of English
University of Ibadan
Nigeria
&
*Fellow*, Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies
University of Ibadan
Phone: +234 803 333 1330;
+234 802 220 8008;
+234 818 639 5001.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment