Addis Herald
  • Home
  • History
  • Africa
  • Travel
  • Music
  • Culture
  • Art

Culture

  • BF1CAA6E-18B6-422A-B62B-16E90D1E0AD5Ethiopian Food as Divine Blessing
  • Skylight-hotel-New-Year-719-Copy-Copy-2-Copy-1How Perfect Is Ethiopian Calander? The Answer Lies On The Seventh Day Of Pagume ‘Aqede’
  • 581FB89E-5B1B-42C7-9A4C-C6658A75C52FEight must-try dishes for Ethiopian New Year in the UAE
  • ED93F3AC-74DA-413B-9810-5B803E7A915FLet this 99-year-old nun be your introduction to Ethio-jazz
  • E00B6DCF-A08A-4223-8597-6734E7355A12Dagmawi Lalibela: The Newest Rock-hewn churches in Ethiopia

Business

  • 49694448-951E-40EB-892F-0DC7CA997B7FWe want to help African airlines recover as we develop region’s aviation industry
  • 4423A6A8-9118-4001-A568-29491271B89BEthiopian Airline Expect To Double Its Fleet And Network By 2035
  • 338F47E9-4A86-4C4F-B56B-479A33A38BDBEthiopian To Fly 3x Daily To Johannesburg and Daily To South American Cities
  • 72B160A7-3A4E-49D6-984C-8AAFB0B7F710Ethiopia and Somalia are Scripting History With a Joint Infrastructure Project
  • 6A6D21B7-BE07-41C3-BC38-D28986C21290Ethiopian Airlines emerges core investor in Nigeria Air with 49% shareholding

Africa

  • Flag-map_of_Algeria.svgAlgeria
  • C440468B-373F-4269-A304-F8C6C8601C31Is Al-Shabab a UN puppet, latest developments strongly suggest so
  • 53BFAF0F-3573-48A6-A062-B650F6D96118Did You Know 14 Teams With Players Of African Origins In 2022 World Cup
  • 45FE9518-D50A-4265-874F-6BB435842EB7Ten key Points That African Leaders Committed To Industrialize The Continent
  • 46E10F33-E3C8-4F7A-9B31-A3204390FC3CNCBA eyes deals for M-Shwari into DRC, Ethiopia
31-understandin
October 19, 2018

Understanding the language of Africa, City Press

In his book, Black Africa: The Economic Basis for a Federated State, Senegalese scholar and Pan-Africanist activist Cheikh Anta Diop observed that for a long time those committed to the emancipation of Africans, in all respects, wrongly thought that they could do so without the necessary understanding of the histories and cultures of the African people.

Time, as Diop pointed out, proved such Africans wrong. Diop’s observations are important to recall now for three interrelated reasons. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the publication of Diop’s article, When Can We Talk Of An African Renaissance? The continued significance of Diop’s 1948 article is his advice to us that there can be no meaningful African Renaissance to speak of except in African languages. This is because Diop recognized, long before Ngugi wa Thiong’o strongly argued in many of his books, that language is both the carrier and the memory bank of culture.

If Africans are committed to reclaiming their heritage to rebuild themselves and claim their space as equal members of the human race in politics and economics, this can effectively be done by using African languages. This is so because no meaningful rebirth can take place without the involvement of the masses of the African people unless such is meant to be an elitist project.

To include the African masses in the African Renaissance, African languages are essential because the masses of our people speak African languages, not European ones.

The second reason for recalling Diop has to do with the announcement by the basic education department, led by Angie Motshekga, that from 2020 Kiswahili language is going to be part of the school curriculum. This is exciting news which brings us to the third reason for remembering Diop.

And this is that this year on September 28 and 29 we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first historical African Renaissance conference held in South Africa in 1998 under the able leadership of Thaninga Shope, Thami Mazwai and Malegapuru Makgoba.

The announcement by Motshekga’s department is a celebration of Diop’s 70th anniversary of his paper and that of the 20th anniversary of the African Renaissance conference at the same time for a number of reasons.

The introduction of Kiswahili in schools is going to enable Africans to break the linguistic barriers which make Africans foreigners to one another. It is going to break Africans’ dependence on their former colonial masters’ languages which forces Africans to speak English, French or Portuguese when they cannot speak one another’s languages.

The second reason is that a common African language is going to enable Africans to know one another. They are going to realize that, contrary to the often advanced view that there is little or nothing that unites Africans beyond their geographic reality and that Africans are nothing more than a diverse and heterogeneous people, the fact is that there is so much in terms of cultural values that unite us – ancestor-veneration (wrongly called ancestor worship), consensus democracy and the notion of family, to name but three.

Africans will come to realize that it is not only the isiXhosa-speaking people who have as their totem the baboon but that the SeSotho- and Setswana-speaking people do, too. Hence among amaXhosa, you find amaMfene, and among the Basotho and Batswana,  you find baTshwene – all meaning the same – the baboon people. Unlike some national groups who think that baboons are stupid animals, Africans, in southern Africa and right up to Ancient Egypt, held baboons in high regard.

If we knew this cultural heritage, we would take no offense when others call us baboons because it says more about their arrogance and ignorance than it says anything about us as Africans.

When we begin to speak and get to know one another better we will learn that the snake does not represent evil to Africans, but a sacredness. This is the case in South Africa, Ancient Egypt, Zimbabwe and Nigeria to name but a few.

Among the isiZulu speakers you find ooNgwenya, the BaKwena among the Batswana and Basotho and TaNgwena among the maShona of Zimbabwe – all meaning the same – the crocodile people.

When we appreciate this cultural unity, we will better appreciate Pan-Africanism, the political liberatory ideology advanced by many progressive and revolutionary African leaders. When this happens, Pan-Africanism will not be the preserve of the elite only, but that of the African masses who are their own liberators. Introducing Kiswahili through education is a great service to Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance.

Source city-press

 

Poetry Africa to sing the praises of praise poetry In Ethiopia, Visual Storytelling From a Deeper Perspective

Related Posts

Flag-map_of_Algeria.svg

Africa, African countries, World

Algeria

C440468B-373F-4269-A304-F8C6C8601C31

Africa, Headlines

Is Al-Shabab a UN puppet, latest developments strongly suggest so

53BFAF0F-3573-48A6-A062-B650F6D96118

Africa, Sport

Did You Know 14 Teams With Players Of African Origins In 2022 World Cup

4 kilo

https://youtu.be/FgCCCrGK8wE

እናትዋ ጎንደር

https://youtu.be/RRqTpYYb7d4

Travel

  • Ethiopia has Over 10,000 Megalithic Monuments dating Back to the 1st CenturyEthiopia has Over 10,000 Megalithic Monuments Dating Back to the 1st Century
  • ethiopia_ethiopian_wolf_35Brilliant Ethiopia: The Unique Wonder
  • F6BD7E94-BC77-4B3E-B905-7B140F12F5FDKenya Had an Elephant ‘Baby Boom’ — and Now You Can Adopt One
  • Addis_herald_omo_3910 Main Tourist Attractions Places in Africa
  • Homage to Entoto Park How the Old “Town in the Forest” is turning into a newly flowering tourist hubHomage to Entoto Park How the Old “Town in the Forest” is turning into a newly flowering tourist hub

Africa

  • Flag-map_of_Algeria.svgAlgeria
  • C440468B-373F-4269-A304-F8C6C8601C31Is Al-Shabab a UN puppet, latest developments strongly suggest so
  • 53BFAF0F-3573-48A6-A062-B650F6D96118Did You Know 14 Teams With Players Of African Origins In 2022 World Cup
  • 45FE9518-D50A-4265-874F-6BB435842EB7Ten key Points That African Leaders Committed To Industrialize The Continent
  • 46E10F33-E3C8-4F7A-9B31-A3204390FC3CNCBA eyes deals for M-Shwari into DRC, Ethiopia

Culture

  • BF1CAA6E-18B6-422A-B62B-16E90D1E0AD5Ethiopian Food as Divine Blessing
  • Skylight-hotel-New-Year-719-Copy-Copy-2-Copy-1How Perfect Is Ethiopian Calander? The Answer Lies On The Seventh Day Of Pagume ‘Aqede’
  • 581FB89E-5B1B-42C7-9A4C-C6658A75C52FEight must-try dishes for Ethiopian New Year in the UAE
  • ED93F3AC-74DA-413B-9810-5B803E7A915FLet this 99-year-old nun be your introduction to Ethio-jazz
  • E00B6DCF-A08A-4223-8597-6734E7355A12Dagmawi Lalibela: The Newest Rock-hewn churches in Ethiopia

Business

  • 49694448-951E-40EB-892F-0DC7CA997B7FWe want to help African airlines recover as we develop region’s aviation industry
  • 4423A6A8-9118-4001-A568-29491271B89BEthiopian Airline Expect To Double Its Fleet And Network By 2035
  • 338F47E9-4A86-4C4F-B56B-479A33A38BDBEthiopian To Fly 3x Daily To Johannesburg and Daily To South American Cities
  • 72B160A7-3A4E-49D6-984C-8AAFB0B7F710Ethiopia and Somalia are Scripting History With a Joint Infrastructure Project
  • 6A6D21B7-BE07-41C3-BC38-D28986C21290Ethiopian Airlines emerges core investor in Nigeria Air with 49% shareholding

RSS Allfrica.com News feed

  • Africa: Senegal Star Sy Named CHAN 2022 Best Goalkeeper
  • Africa: L'algérino, Ckay, Zaho Ignite CHAN 2022 Closing Ceremony
  • Africa: Algeria's Mahious Scoops CHAN 2022 Golden Boot Award
  • Africa: Senegal Win Penalty Shootout Against Algeria to Become CHAN Champions
  • Africa: Algeria's Mrezigue Named TotalEnergies CHAN 2022 Best Player
  • Africa: Dax Elated With Madagascar Presidential Phone Call
  • Africa: Niger Proud of CHAN Campaign Despite Loss
  • Africa: Rakotondrabe Over the Moon Following CHAN Bronze
  • Africa: Madagascar Beat Niger to Clinch TotalEnergies CHAN Third Place
  • Africa: World Will Miss Target of Ending FGM By 2030 Without Urgent Action - Including From Men and Boys
  • Abijitta-Shalla National Park
  • Alatish Ethiopian National Park
  • Awash National Park
  • Babille Elephant Sanctuary
  • Bahir Dar Blue Nile Millennium Park
  • Bale National Park; Ethiopia’s lesser-known Treasure
  • Bale Mountains National Park
  • Borena-Sayint National Park
  • Chebera Churchura National Park
  • Dati Wolel National park
  • Gambella National Park
  • Gambella National Park 2
  • Kafta-Sheraro National Park
  • Mago National Park
  • Maze National Park
  • Nechisar National Park, Ethiopia
  • Omo National Park 
  • The Semien Mountains
  • Yabello National Park
  • Yangudi Rassa National Park
© Addis Herald 2023
  • Contact us
en English
am Amharicar Arabiczh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanel Greekhi Hindiit Italianja Japaneseko Koreanla Latinru Russianes Spanishsu Sudanesesw Swahilisv Swedish