• About me
  • Curriculum Vitae

Kamau Rashid

Website of Kamau Rashid: scholar, educator, and activist

institutions

Languages and revolution

Posted on June 11, 2017

One of the most interesting aspects of the revitalization of African languages among African Americans has been that these languages have been used as vehicles of revolutionary political, economic, and cultural discourse prior to having become institutionalized as daily means of mundane communication. Examples abound, such as ujamaa, sankɔfa, aṣe (axe in Brazil), Htp (Hotep), asante, abibifahodie, mAat (Maat), kujichagulia, and so forth. While these terms have entered the African American lexicon, they have become islands of African cultural practice in that most often we lack even a rudimentary fluency in the languages in question.

While our use of African terminology (including greetings and the like) is a very positive development, we must go the necessary step further of institutionalizing these languages as tools of daily communication. Of the languages featured above (Kiswahili, Twi, Yoruba, and mdw nTr (Medu Netcher), Kiswahili’s existing status as an international language make it the most attractive as a Pan-African language; Twi and Yoruba (to say nothing of Igbo, Kikongo, Wolof, and so forth) are important as languages which facilitate cultural (re)connection or re-Africanization given the West and West-central African origins of most African Americans; and mdw nTr is best positioned to serve as our classical African language, providing an epistemological framework that will aid in the decolonization of both ourselves as well as the language(s) that we adopt.

It should be clarified that I am not arguing that these languages are destinations unto themselves, rather that they are vehicles that might facilitate our movement from where we presently are towards where we desire to be. As such, the movement beyond our present use of African languages towards greater fluency may facilitate a range of unanticipated developments. The Maori of New Zealand have found that the revitalization of their language has led to a renewed interest in their indigenous technologies among other things. We might “discover” models of governance that aid us in our organizational work and professional lives. We might reclaim models of economic organization wherein women controlled major sectors of economic activity as a means of ensuring their self-determination–which helps in the larger ujamaa project that we are engaged in. We might acquire paradigms of marriage that are beyond the relatively superficial bases that are normalized in the West, which often leads to the formation of unstable family units. We might put into practice methods of struggle that augments the depth of our vision and refines the intelligence of our methods. We might devise new ways of understanding ourselves, our community, and our movement through time and space. In short, the serious study of African languages could be nothing less than revolutionary.

Posted in: Culture | Tagged: Africa, Afrika, institution, institutions, Kiswahili, language, mdw nTr, Medew, Medu, Metu, Netcher, Neter, Pan-African, Swahili

Recent Posts

  • The corporate Hip Hop project
  • Ambiguous group signifiers
  • Without end
  • The deep well of African cultural knowledge
  • Forgetfulness

Recent Comments

  • Ali McBride on Revisiting the Nationalist Vision of Emigration
  • Olatunji Mwamba on Re-Africanization: Two perspectives
  • Khalil Maasi on African spirituality and the warrior tradition
  • Dr. Josef Ben Levi on Dr. Josef Ben Levi on language and epistemology
  • bonotchi on Dr. Josef Ben Levi on language and epistemology

Archives

  • April 2018
  • January 2018
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014

Categories

  • Culture
  • Education
  • History
  • language
  • Maat
  • Martial arts
  • Philosophy
  • Political-economy
  • Racism and white supremacy
  • Uhuru
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2018 Kamau Rashid.

Theme by ThemeHall.