Bokelskere.no

Hvorfor valgte Achebe å skrive på engelsk?

Achebe writes his novels in English because written Standard Igbo was created by combining various dialects, creating a stilted written form. In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Achebe said, "(...) There is a problem with the Igbo language. It suffers from a very serious inheritance which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican mission. They (...) had this notion that the Igbo Language (...) should somehow manufacture a uniform dialect that would be used in writing to avoid all these different dialects.(...) But the standard version cannot sing. There's nothing you can do with it to make it sing. It's heavy. It's wooden. It doesn't go anywhere." (Wikipedia; min utheving).

Han ble vel strengt tatt indoktrinert med det engelske språket fra han var liten gutt. Som tolvåring reiser han hjemmefra for å begynne på det vi kan kalle en engelsk variant av deres kostskoler. Der oppdaget han bibliotekets skatter.

Når du skriver "indoktrinert med det engelske språket", får jeg en ekkel assosiasjon til fornorskningspolitikken overfor samene og deres språk.