The Genius of Languages

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The Genius of LanguagesAuthor(s): Dianne JohnsonSource: World Literature Today, Vol. 79, No. 3/4 (Sep. - Dec., 2005), pp. 4-5Published by: Board of Regents of the University of OklahomaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40158912

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2/3

Letters

Letters

o

the

editor are welcome and

may

be e-mailed to [email protected] or sent care of: WLTLetters / 630

Parrington

Oval,

Suite 110/

University

of Oklahoma

/

Norman,

OK

73019-4033 / USA. Not all

correspondence

can be

printed,

and those chosen

may

be edited for

clarity

and

space

as needed. The editors and

publishers

assume no

responsibility

or contributors'

opinions.

Kudos

Congratulations

World

Literature

Today

has done

t

again.Reading

he ssue devot-

ed to children's

iterature,

nd

especially

about the new

NSK

Neustadt

Prize

for

Children's

Literature,

as filled

my

heart

with

joy

(see

the

May-August

2004

ssue).

I

congratulate

he

University

f Oklahoma

and all

of

you

at

WLT

who worked so

hard

to make this

prize

a

reality.

I

also

want to

congratulate

he

jurors;

know

it

must have been a difficult ask for them.

In

choosing

Mildred

Taylor hey

have set

a

very high

standard

or

subsequent

ward

winners.She

has been

a

favoriteof mine

for

years. My

studentsback

in

Laredoat

TexasA&MInternational

niversity

also

loved her

books,

which

were on

my

list

forthe children'siteraturelasses

taught

there.

But

aside

from

the children's

itera-

ture

essays

n

the

May

ssue,

I

enjoyed

all

the otherarticles ndfeatures s well.

WLT

ontinues

o cover

iterary

ssues

and

to

publish

ncisiveandvaluable

ssays

forcritics ndwritersalike.

enjoyed

ead-

ing J. M. Coetzee's Nobel Prize lecture.

Kristjana

unnars's

nd Abdulrazak

Gur-

nah's

essays

alsohit the

mark,

ince

I

write

"short" ooksabout

my

own little

piece

of

earth that is the U.S.-Mexico orderland.

I

definitely agree

with Gurnah'sassess-

mentthat

writing

rom he bosomof one's

history

and

culture s not

a

possibility

n

any

profound

way,

for in a sense we are

all

deterritorialized

eings

who write to

remember nd to

keep

alive the memories

of who we were

and

who we are.The

past

is, indeed,

a

foreigncountry,

as someone

said.

Bueno,

in

mas,

offer

my

best wishes

and

look forward

o

upcoming

ssues of

WLT.

know

I will

not be

disappointed.

jGracias

Norma

E.

Canni

University f Texas,SanAntonio

The Genius of

Languages

I read

Ngfigi

wa

Thiong'o's"Recovering

the

Original"

ith much nterest

see

WLT,

September-December

004,

12-15).

As

an

AfricanAmerican

rofessor

f

English,

as

a

childof

a

military amily

oftenaccused

of

"talkingproper"

as

a South Carolin-

ian,

and

as

a

writer,

I've

always

had

an

intense nterest

n

language.

Like

Ngfigi,

I

can recount

plenty

of

schoolhouse/

duca-

tion anecdotes.One

that

stands

out

took

place

when

I

was on

a

selectioncommit-

tee for a

special

summer

program

for

high-school

students.

In

the text of her

recommendation,

teacher wrote: "I've

been

knowing

her for

ten

years."

The

European

Americans

on the committee

had an

immediate

nd

extremely egative

reaction.How could

a school eacherwrite

such

a

sentence?

My response

o themwas

that

this sentence

in

African American

Vernacular

nglish

AAVE)

evealedmuch

more

about histeacher's

elationship

ith

her student than would the statement

"I

have

known

her for ten

years."

The sen-

tence on thatpagemeant hat the teacher

had seen

this student

grow

from

a

child

into

a

young

lady,

had

possibly

dried

her

tears,

had

celebrated

er successes

n

school,

had

spoken

with her

about her

aspirations.

here

was

genius

n

that sen-

tence,

and in

every language,

as

Ngugi

so

powerfully

eminds

us.

In

researching

African American

children's

iterature,

he

subject

of lan-

guage

comes

up

overandover

again.

Poet

JuneJordan

s

proud

of

writing

His

Own

Where

1971),

which some consider the

first

young-adult

novel written

in

black

English.

Poet Lucille

Clifton,

one of the

pioneers

of blackchildren's

iterature,

as

spoken

about

being challenged

or

using

black

English

n

her books. Her

response

was that she was

writing

literature,

not

grammar ooks. At the other end of the

spectrum,

Carolivia

Herron'scontrover-

sial

Nappy

Hairhas been criticized or a

host of

issues,

among

hem he

problemat-

ic natureof her comments bout

anguage:

the

main

characters

praised

or

speaking

both

the

King's

and

Queen's

English,

s

if

this

masterycompensates

or her

nappy

hair.

As teachers

and

writers,

what

do

we teach?That

speakers

of black

Eng-

lish

must

consider themselves

bilingual

and masterboth?Robert

McNeil,

of pbs's

McNeil-Lehrer

Report,

uggests

in

his recent

documentary

Do You

Speak

American?"

thatblack

English

and standard

American

English

are

growing

more

widely

apart

n

grammar,

ronunciation,

nd

more.

What

are

the

implications

f this

development?

In

many ways,

the

relationship

between standardAmerican

English

and

the Gullah

anguage

found

in

the South

Carolina

and

Georgia

sea islands is

the

case

study

most similar to the

English/

Gikuyu relationship.

The Gullah

people

have

a

relatively

new sense of

pride

in

their

language,

demonstratednot

in a

small

or

uncomplicated) ay by

the mon-

umentalprojectof translatinghe Chris-

tian Bible into Gullah.

Ng&gi's nsights

are nvaluable

n

helping

writers, eachers,

and

observersof American ulture nter-

pret

and

understandhe

linguistic,

rtistic,

socioeconomic, ducational,

and cultural

issues

surrounding

Gullahas

well

as

other

formsof American

English.

His memories

4

•

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3/3

and

musings

clarify

most

poignantly

he

genius

of

language,

a

genius

that

many

lose

sight

of

all too often

and

easily.

Dianne

Johnson

University

f South

Carolina

Gikuyu

and Realistic Necessities

In

1952,

at about he sametime

that

Ngfigi

wa

Thiong'o

witnessed the

brutalization

of

a

fellow student

for

daring

to

speak

Gikuyu,

an adult hit

me,

trying

to con-

vinceme to learn

a

second

anguage.

Then

one

day,

for some

insignificant

nfraction,

a

teacher

viciously

beat

a

student

in a

public display

that

so

traumatizedme

that,

although

I

was

only

eleven

years

old,

I

adamantly

efusedto return

o the

school.

I

prevailed.Despite

this

inauspi-

cious

beginning,

my

love

of

languages

prevailed,

and

I

went on

to

study

ten

diverse

onguesranging

romGerman

nd

Russian o Icelandic

nd

Middle

Kingdom

Egyptian.

care

about

anguages

nd

their

demise

and

loss.

Hundredsof

seemingly

insignificantanguages

xist,

some

spoken

by

a

mere

handful of

people:

there are

morethan five hundred

Native American

tribes

and hundreds

of distinct

Aborigi-

nal

groups

in

Australia

many

of these

peoples

speakmutually

ncomprehensible

tongues.

Nevertheless,

believethat each

of these is

worthy

of

preservation,spe-

cially

or those

people

who

were reared

n

them

and

now

must watch

helplessly

as

the

next

generationgnores

the

language

in which the

group's

oral

and cultural

traditionshave been

passed

down from

generation

to

generation.

Additionally,

one must

never

forget

that

the

language

itself

is a cultural

entity,

not

merely

a

transmitterf

ideas,

raditions,

ndbeliefs.

And so it is clear that

I

sympathize

with

Ngugi's position,

one

that he has

long

maintained

and

previously

articu-

lated

in

print.

He believes

that he must

write

n

Gikuyu

and does so.

But this is a

symbolic

act.

It

serves

no one

except

the

author

(who

does

naturally

matter)

and

perhaps

handful f

Gikuyu peakers

who

choose

o

readhis work.

fhe or othersdid

not translate

is

writings

nto at least one

world

language,

then even

those who

admirehis

workcouldnot

participate

n

it.

There s

no doubt that

English

s

the

hegemonic

world

language,

and

this was

unequivocally

he case before he Internet

came

along.

But

ragingagainst ontempo-

rary linguistic mperialism

s even

more

unrealistic

than

retroactively amenting

the existence

of an earlier

ingua

franca:

when Latinwas

ubiquitous,

cholars

asily

shared heir deaswith

people

all

over the

worldwithout

he aid of

translators;

hen

French

prevailed,

t was the

language

of

the

Russian

court;

and when

long

ago

English

became the

dominant

anguage,

it

was

decided thatit shouldbe used for

communication

n

international

ir-traffic

control.Does

anyone

have

a

viable

alter-

native o this?

I

admire

Ngugi

for

sticking

to his internal

inguistic

demands,

but it

really

has

no effecton the vast

majority

f

his readers.

Robert

Hauptman

St. Cloud

State

University

Against Forgetting

Sophia McClennen's

"Poetry

and Tor-

ture" s

a

compellingpiece

and one that

seems to

apply perfectly

to

the current

global

state of events

(WLT,

eptember-

December

004,68-70).

We ive

in a

world

where we hear

of the atrocities

hat

war

prisoners

n

bothsides

experience

nd see

images

of

what

victims

suffer

every day.

Nevertheless,

we still do not

fully grasp

their

implications

until

we read

a heart-

wrenchingpoem

or

story

that

somehow

speaks

to us

in a

way

that news

reports

cannot.

McClennenrealizes

that while

poetry

can

capture

a

part

of

what

the tor-

turedhave

gone through,

here s still

an

"unbridgeable

istance from

the

experi-

enceof the victim." he

acknowledges

hat

it

is

impossible

to describeand

capture

fully

the heinous nature of

torture,

yet

she

recognizes

hat we must

keep trying.

Despite

this

seemingly

unbridgeable ap,

McClennen

harges

us to seek these

poets

out who "call

upon

us to

acknowledge

he

horrorof tortureand to

fight

for

hope."

She

challenges

us

and

inspires

us

at

the

same

time.

McClennen

tates that communities

that

have

experienced

terror are often

unable o use certainwords without

expe-

riencing hysicalpain.

I

was a

high-school

student

living

about

twenty

miles

away

from he site of the

Oklahoma

City

bomb-

ing

in

1995.

Even

though

I did

not

lose

any

friendsor

family

members

n

this hor-

rendousact of

violence,

I

can

still feel its

effect

on our

community

en

years

later.

Thereare

phrases

hat we can no

longer

use without

feeling

a

pang

in

our

hearts;

such

generic

erms

as

Ryder

ruck nd

9:02

am. will neverbe the same orus.

McClen-

nen asks

which words we must

save for

tomorrow.

'm

not sure

whichwordsmust

be

saved,

but we know

whichwords must

neverbe

forgotten.

Amanda

Fortney

Guthrie,

Oklahoma

"These

ournals,

as

they

reach a wider

public,

will

contributemost

effec-

tively

to

the universalworld literature or

which we are

hoping.

Therecan

be no

question,

however,

of nations

thinking

alike. The

aim

is

simply

that

they

shall

grow

aware of one

another,

understandone

another,and,

even

where

they

may

not be able to

love,

may

at least tolerate

one another."

-Goethe,

Uber

Kunstund

Alterthum,

828

WORLDLITERATURE ODAY

•

SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER

005

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The Genius of Languages