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  • Chinua Achebe born (16/11/1930)

    From Ross Clark@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 17 22:16:19 2024
    Nigerian novelist, poet and critic. Lived until 2013.

    He wrote in English.

    "This English, then, which I am using, has witnessed peculiar events in
    my land that it has never experienced anywhere else. The English
    language has never been close to Igbo, Hausa, or Yoruba anywhere else in
    the world. So it has to be different, because these languages and their environment are not inert. They are active, and they are acting on this language which has invaded their territory."

    So Nigerian English. But a very educated NigEng, not Fela Kuti's Pidgin
    or even Amos Tutuola's indigenized colloquial.

    "...those who can do the work of extending the frontiers of English so
    as to accommodate African thought patterns must do it through their
    mastery of English and not out of innocence."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinua_Achebe

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Aidan Kehoe@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 17 09:51:17 2024
    Ar an seachtú lá déag de mí na Samhain, scríobh Ross Clark:

    Nigerian novelist, poet and critic. Lived until 2013.

    He wrote in English.

    His “Things Fall Apart” was on the local English secondary school syllabus here
    in the 90s, a good book.

    "This English, then, which I am using, has witnessed peculiar events in my land
    that it has never experienced anywhere else. The English language has never been close to Igbo, Hausa, or Yoruba anywhere else in the world. So it has to
    be different, because these languages and their environment are not inert. They
    are active, and they are acting on this language which has invaded their territory."

    So Nigerian English. But a very educated NigEng, not Fela Kuti's Pidgin or even
    Amos Tutuola's indigenized colloquial.

    "...those who can do the work of extending the frontiers of English so as to accommodate African thought patterns must do it through their mastery of English and not out of innocence."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinua_Achebe

    We’ve had a certain amount of Nigerian immigration here in Ireland; most of the
    Nigerians I’ve known have been doctors, but there was plenty of less-educated immigration that has died off as Ireland became more credentialist. I don’t think I ever heard one of my doctor colleague speak a non-English language on a personal call, in contrast to, e.g. the Pakistanis and the Arabs.

    --
    ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
    How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
    (C. Moore)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)