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• Ngugi wa Thiong'o on Africa and  its interpreters
  • At http://www.mg.co.za/mg/books/jul97/21jul-ngugi.html you will find  an edited version of a speech delivered by Prof. Ngugi at the English Teachers Connect conference hosted by the Applied English Language Studies Division of the University of the Witwatersrand.  This was published by  the Electronic Mail and Guardian Review of Books, July 21, 1997 under the title 'Nations of bodiless heads and headless bodies.' It is part of a series of lectures (subsequently) published by Oxford University Press under the title Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams.
    
    Ngugi defines three roles of the modern African interpreter in the colonial and post-colonial era as a foreign agent and messenger; as a double agent; and as "a people's scout and guide to the stars of freedom."
    
    The first helps the colonial power to conquer the interior and map the country and its resources. Later, mastering the foreign language, he may serve the administration in a junior role. While he is so engaged, "in the plantations, in the enclosures either in diaspora or on the continent, African languages and their associated images, myths, stories, (become) the space in which the slave and the colonial subject," are able to stake out some territory which remains their own.
    
    The second type of interpreter sees his role as "articulating the messages and demands of the jailed to the jailer." "These often go through Caliban's spiritual journey from gratitude for the learning to denunciation of the abuses of that learning. And they can do it with a perfect command of the language of their master . . ."  In alliance with his people, he resists and ultimately overthrows slavery and colonial rule.  He learns then, "that the only real power a black man can have will come from black people."
    
    Ngugi's "third category of interpreter (works) in African languages to interpret reality within and without the borders of the country for the consumption of the African community." Ngugi regards the role of this interpreter as an essential factor in political and economic development.

• A personal note.

  • If Ama is to have the ability  to understand and comment upon her oppressors, she must learn their languages. She picks up Dagbani and Asante (and Fanti) without difficulty. This is not implausible: many, perhaps most, West Africans speak several languages. 
    
    Given the historical period and Ama's circumstances, providing her with the opportunity to learn to understand, speak, read and write a European language required some contrivance on my part. I claim writer's licence.  (However, J J Capitein did run a school at Elmina Castle and Philip Quaque did the same at Cape Coast some years later.)
    
    Mastering English and, later, Portuguese, gives Ama some small power. She recognizes the importance to the slaves in Brazil of Portuguese as a lingua franca.  Yet she relishes the opportunity to speak a shared African language and in doing so holds on to her African identity.
    
    My mother tongue is English and I could not have written AMA in any other language.  I would like the book to be published in English in Ghana. For that to happen there must be a large increase in the number of readers who can afford to buy books to read for pleasure.  I would like to have it translated into Lekpokpam, Dagbani, Asante, Fanti. Unfortunately, this makes even less economic sense.
    
    So while I share Ngugi's fierce commitment to the survival and growth of African languages, I fear that his might be a voice crying in the wilderness.   MH

   

• Henry Wiencek on Literacy under slavery

  • The history of slavery, the slave trade, abolition and emancipation [SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU]; on behalf of; Steven Mintz [smintz@UH.EDU] SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU Tue 13-11-01
  • From: "Henry Wiencek" <hsw@cstone.net>  One way to get a grasp on how widespread literacy was among slaves would be to look at the Freedman's Bureau records systematically and sort out the letters written by former slaves to the bureau. I looked through the records from the Virginia and NC piedmont area several years ago and I cannot recall seeing any letters written by former slaves.  When the bureau conducted marriage registrations in 1866 the agents complained that they had to fill out the forms because the freedpeople could not even write their names.  When the Quakers established a school at Danville they were able to find only one literate black man who could help them with teaching.  I studied the Hairston family intensively for years.  The Hairston slaves numbered in the thousands.  Only one slave, the son of a master, could read and write, as far as I could tell.  As Clayton wrote, that slave's literacy allowed him to communicate with his master/father about plantation business.  Aside from that one case, I never found any document written by a slave or former Hairston slave in the 19th century, and I looked very hard for such documents.  I did find a letter written by a slave describing elaborate plans for an uprising in NC, but I was not able to connect that letter to a Hairston slave. So my feeling is that literacy among slaves was indeed extremely, extremely rare.  Any advantage to the masters of having a literate slave was far outweighed by the great danger of having a slave who could write counterfeit travel passes and free papers.  The masters had a hundred reasons for keeping the slaves ignorant and illiterate.  Henry Wiencek  

  • Henry Wiencek is the author of "The Hairstons--An American Family in Black and White," a non-fiction work that tells the history of an African-American family from slavery time to the present.  
    In a reply in the same thread, Phillip Troutman points out that an ability to read does not imply an ability to write; and quotes other scholars' estimates of 5 to10% literacy amongst slaves in the American south.
    
    

   

• Some 18th Century English Children's Books and books about them.

  • Ashton, John (ed), Chapbooks of the Eighteenth Century, London, Chatto and Windus,1882
  • Bellie, Philip, 1757, The Child's Best Instructor
  • Bingham, Jane and Grayce Scholt, Fifteen Centuries of Children's Literature, Greenwood Press 1980
  • Cunningham, Robert Hays (ed) Amusing Prose Chapbooks, Chiefly of the last century.
  • Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, the history of, 1719.
  • Field, Mrs. E. M. The Child and his Book: Some account of the history and progress of children's literature in England 1892
  • Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)  Goody Two-Shoes
  • Harris T. (printer) 1749 A New Playbook for Children
  • Heal, Sir Ambrose, The English Writing-Masters and their Copy Books
  • Meigs, Cornelia, et al, A Critical Look at Children's Literature Macmillan N Y 1964
  • Muir, Percy, English Childrens Books 1600-1900 Batsford 1954
  • Newbery, John, great days of publication 1744-67
  • Pearson, Edwin, Banbury Chap Books and Nursery Toy Book Literature (of the XVIII and early MX centuries) London 1890
  • Perrault, Charles 1698
  • Richardson, Aesop's Fables 1740
  • Richardson, Samuel, Pamela
  • Swift, Jonathan,  Gullivers Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
  • Thwaite, M F, From Primer to Pleasure: An Introduction to the History of Children's Books in England, from the Invention of Printing to 1900, 1963
  • Whiteley, Sandy. Newbery notes: John Newbery and his books: Trade and Plumb cake for ever, huzza!, ed by John Rowe Townsend In American Libraries, 1995
  • Watt, Ian The Rise of the Novel, Hogarth Press
  • Weiss, Harry B, A catalogue of chapbooks in the New York Public Library,   1936
  • Children in the Wood
  • Cinderella and the Glass Slipper
  • Cock Robin, Death and Burial of
  • Dame Trot and her Cat
  • Jack the Giant Killer, The history of
  • Mother Hubbard
  • Primer of 1703, subsequently reprinted and copied
  • Robin Hood and Little John
  • Royal Primer
  • Rusher: A Galloping Guide to the ABC
  • A Thousand and One Nights; Ali Baba, Aladdin, Sinbad
  • Tom Thumb, The history of
  • Wise Men of Gotham, Merry Tales of the