Liberate the Base: Thoughts Toward an African Language Policy

Abstract

In this chapter Ngũgĩ raises debates and practices evident in many colonized societies which are at the heart of postcolonial theories, that of Indigenous languages, and the knowledges they hold. Ngũgĩ argues there are four perceived barriers to the establishment of an African language policy that form an orthodoxy difficult to shift. However, drawing on the work of language “border communities” and the work of the Jalada project, he shows how an African language policy can be developed that reflects current practices that empowers Africa and its peoples and protects its knowledge base.

This paper is an edited version of that which was presented as the Neville Alexander Memorial Lecture, Harvard, at the Harvard Centre for African Studies, on April 19, 2016