Some Implications of the Wholesale Adoption
of Someone Else’s Language:
a foreign language meets a local people
This article looks at the problems associated with the wholesale adoption by a people of a foreign language for formal purposes, in African context, as applied to missionary policy.
Languages evolve as new things, processes, thoughts, ideologies etc. are referred to in new ways. Alternatively instead of giving a name for a new thing, a thing can be sought to fit a new name. This happens when a foreign language is introduced to people and they are told ‘this is your language’. Some words seem to be straightforward, and appear to be simply equivalents to the original language. But some words in the foreign language describe things that were not there in the local language and are not found in the local culture. You can’t have words being used that don’t refer to anything, so local things or qualities are adopted to fit those words.
From thereon one cannot then say ‘word X’ of a foreign language is not understood in its new locality. If the ‘word X’ is found in the foreign language, and that foreign language has now been appropriated by another people, then something local must already have been found to fit that word. Because words can’t mean nothing, meanings are found to fit them. A people who take someone else’s language and call it their own can find meanings for all parts of that foreign language. As a result words can be given meanings that are different to those they had at their point of origin. The same words, phrases, and sentences therefore, will be interpreted differently in the ‘local’ place than in the original ‘foreign’ place.
The oxymorish situation develops, in which a people can be fully conversant with aspects of foreign ways of life that are being communicated, of which they know little or nothing. That is, all that the foreign people have achieved and can achieve or done or know the local person also has achieved or can do or knows, if the foreigners’ language is also their language. As a result differences in understanding that will be evident in actions and life context will not be locatable linguistically. This makes cooperation between a foreign and a local person difficult because it precludes the possibility of allowing for difference either in carrying out functions, or in relationships.
In other words, wholesale introduction of a foreign language will not mean that the language is meaningless, but it will mean that its set of moorings or attachments to the life of the people concerned will come to be different from those it had at its point of origin. Thus the way a language comes to be used and, if you like, what it’s use means, can be vastly different for its new as against its original owners.
The wholesale adoption of someone else’s language for formal activities concerning one’s own community is certain difficult at the beginning. But in the course of time adjustments could be made to compensate for its lack of fit. That is, new phrases, words and terminologies can be coined. Some parts of a language that are not relevant can be forgotten, and others used more frequently. New uses can be added. Grammatically and functionally a language can be altered and honed to fit the contours of its new community. Foreign terms can come to have indigenous meanings, so the new owners of the language will get to the place where they understand one another.
But, this can only happen if a people are left with the freedom with which to make such changes. This cannot happen to a foreign language, if it continues to be insisted that it is the same as that of the community from which it has arisen, which is culturally, socially, economically and historically foreign. If a foreign language, through its being insisted that its use in the new community is the same as that in the community of its origin is not allowed to change, the language will be prevented from fitting to its new contours.
A people’s use of a language that continues to be rooted amongst a different people with a different culture and context will result in ‘incompetence’ in functionality. This is because ‘correct’ usage is that which aligns to other than the local culture in which it is being used. Words and phrases will have their ‘correct’ (foreign) meaning, and also their locally appropriated meanings. Its not being locally rooted means that the foreign language cannot tell ‘the truth’ about the local situation. Hence untruths become normal. Once this has happened, people can find themselves in a trap of saying untruths from which it is not easy to emerge.
Application to the African Context
British colonial policy advocated the running of African countries using the English language and European administrative structures. At the time of independence, African countries had the choice of either appropriating the structures that the British left for them, or dismantling them and building their own. Across the board, they chose the former option. In other circumstances this could not have worked for very long, and people would have reverted to their own languages and doing what they themselves understand. Instead though what has happened is that the outside world has insisted that the ex-colonial structure be maintained. They have done this in many ways, including through subsidy, aid, sometimes military intervention and so on. This process continues to date. It is the ex-colonial structures in Africa that are given international legitimacy and recognition.[1]
The current system has various advantages – particularly in terms of the control it continues to allow Western nations to have over Africa. In Anglophone Africa for example, because the system that the African people are running and living on is foreign to them, they are constantly and increasingly dependent on foreign powers for the effective organization of their countries. They can in this circumstance never challenge or surpass the Western nations. Their professionals, being trained in a Western way, are available to serve Western peoples (professionals in Africa are typically highly competent in European languages and at least theoretically conversant with operations in European contexts).
The drawbacks of the current system are also clear. Because governance in Africa is not locally grounded, it is riddled with corruption. Because of people’s failure to understand even the words they speak (see above) incompetence characterises African leadership. Because the boundaries between cultures have been rendered invisible through use of a common language, causes of the problems in Africa remain largely out of sight to the West. Africa’s people being trained for the European context makes the brain-drain all too prominent. Widespread poverty continues to characterise the African scene.
Important questions of responsibility need to be asked. The apparent handing over of political power has given Western nations an excuse for not being responsible for much that happens in Africa. But can countries be considered to be independent and responsible for themselves when their economies continue to be controlled from the outside, and the international community insists that they be run on a system that they cannot themselves manage? Power over people, such as that of Western nations over Africa, should imply responsibility for them. This apparently does not apply to Africa because its governments are supposedly ‘independent’.
Allowing them their own languages means that ‘subject peoples’ can remain strong or even increase in strength, such that the day could come when they would break free from outside domination. I believe that the fear of this happening should not motivate policy. Initiative, innovation, and independent action should be encouraged and not squashed. Current practice through which the social structure of African nations is under foreign control / attack needs to end.
If big political players will not listen to such advice, then at least the church should stand on its conscience and refuse to share in such oppressive practices. That is – the church should be at the forefront of encouraging African people to take responsibility for themselves. A part of this, is that it should encourage the use of indigenous languages. I believe that the Gospel of Christ is not about oppressing a people or forcing them into economic subservience, as secular society is currently doing to Africa. I believe God would rather have people set free to worship him than to be bound to do so for their survival (as can happen with the prosperity Gospel).
There is an alternative, ancient and much tried and tested if difficult alternative model of intervention in societies other than one’s own. That is, the historic practice of the missionary. His / her work has over centuries had a such major impact as to cause enormous changes across the globe. But the very key to his/her success, I suggest, is the refusal to use the means of economic obligation, political clout or legal enforcement. Instead the missionary, once having learned their language and lived amongst them in a way of vulnerable humility, appeals to people to hear the words of God. That is what vulnerable mission is about.
This article looks at the problems associated with the wholesale adoption by a people of a foreign language for formal purposes, in African context, as applied to missionary policy.
Languages evolve as new things, processes, thoughts, ideologies etc. are referred to in new ways. Alternatively instead of giving a name for a new thing, a thing can be sought to fit a new name. This happens when a foreign language is introduced to people and they are told ‘this is your language’. Some words seem to be straightforward, and appear to be simply equivalents to the original language. But some words in the foreign language describe things that were not there in the local language and are not found in the local culture. You can’t have words being used that don’t refer to anything, so local things or qualities are adopted to fit those words.
From thereon one cannot then say ‘word X’ of a foreign language is not understood in its new locality. If the ‘word X’ is found in the foreign language, and that foreign language has now been appropriated by another people, then something local must already have been found to fit that word. Because words can’t mean nothing, meanings are found to fit them. A people who take someone else’s language and call it their own can find meanings for all parts of that foreign language. As a result words can be given meanings that are different to those they had at their point of origin. The same words, phrases, and sentences therefore, will be interpreted differently in the ‘local’ place than in the original ‘foreign’ place.
The oxymorish situation develops, in which a people can be fully conversant with aspects of foreign ways of life that are being communicated, of which they know little or nothing. That is, all that the foreign people have achieved and can achieve or done or know the local person also has achieved or can do or knows, if the foreigners’ language is also their language. As a result differences in understanding that will be evident in actions and life context will not be locatable linguistically. This makes cooperation between a foreign and a local person difficult because it precludes the possibility of allowing for difference either in carrying out functions, or in relationships.
In other words, wholesale introduction of a foreign language will not mean that the language is meaningless, but it will mean that its set of moorings or attachments to the life of the people concerned will come to be different from those it had at its point of origin. Thus the way a language comes to be used and, if you like, what it’s use means, can be vastly different for its new as against its original owners.
The wholesale adoption of someone else’s language for formal activities concerning one’s own community is certain difficult at the beginning. But in the course of time adjustments could be made to compensate for its lack of fit. That is, new phrases, words and terminologies can be coined. Some parts of a language that are not relevant can be forgotten, and others used more frequently. New uses can be added. Grammatically and functionally a language can be altered and honed to fit the contours of its new community. Foreign terms can come to have indigenous meanings, so the new owners of the language will get to the place where they understand one another.
But, this can only happen if a people are left with the freedom with which to make such changes. This cannot happen to a foreign language, if it continues to be insisted that it is the same as that of the community from which it has arisen, which is culturally, socially, economically and historically foreign. If a foreign language, through its being insisted that its use in the new community is the same as that in the community of its origin is not allowed to change, the language will be prevented from fitting to its new contours.
A people’s use of a language that continues to be rooted amongst a different people with a different culture and context will result in ‘incompetence’ in functionality. This is because ‘correct’ usage is that which aligns to other than the local culture in which it is being used. Words and phrases will have their ‘correct’ (foreign) meaning, and also their locally appropriated meanings. Its not being locally rooted means that the foreign language cannot tell ‘the truth’ about the local situation. Hence untruths become normal. Once this has happened, people can find themselves in a trap of saying untruths from which it is not easy to emerge.
Application to the African Context
British colonial policy advocated the running of African countries using the English language and European administrative structures. At the time of independence, African countries had the choice of either appropriating the structures that the British left for them, or dismantling them and building their own. Across the board, they chose the former option. In other circumstances this could not have worked for very long, and people would have reverted to their own languages and doing what they themselves understand. Instead though what has happened is that the outside world has insisted that the ex-colonial structure be maintained. They have done this in many ways, including through subsidy, aid, sometimes military intervention and so on. This process continues to date. It is the ex-colonial structures in Africa that are given international legitimacy and recognition.[1]
The current system has various advantages – particularly in terms of the control it continues to allow Western nations to have over Africa. In Anglophone Africa for example, because the system that the African people are running and living on is foreign to them, they are constantly and increasingly dependent on foreign powers for the effective organization of their countries. They can in this circumstance never challenge or surpass the Western nations. Their professionals, being trained in a Western way, are available to serve Western peoples (professionals in Africa are typically highly competent in European languages and at least theoretically conversant with operations in European contexts).
The drawbacks of the current system are also clear. Because governance in Africa is not locally grounded, it is riddled with corruption. Because of people’s failure to understand even the words they speak (see above) incompetence characterises African leadership. Because the boundaries between cultures have been rendered invisible through use of a common language, causes of the problems in Africa remain largely out of sight to the West. Africa’s people being trained for the European context makes the brain-drain all too prominent. Widespread poverty continues to characterise the African scene.
Important questions of responsibility need to be asked. The apparent handing over of political power has given Western nations an excuse for not being responsible for much that happens in Africa. But can countries be considered to be independent and responsible for themselves when their economies continue to be controlled from the outside, and the international community insists that they be run on a system that they cannot themselves manage? Power over people, such as that of Western nations over Africa, should imply responsibility for them. This apparently does not apply to Africa because its governments are supposedly ‘independent’.
Allowing them their own languages means that ‘subject peoples’ can remain strong or even increase in strength, such that the day could come when they would break free from outside domination. I believe that the fear of this happening should not motivate policy. Initiative, innovation, and independent action should be encouraged and not squashed. Current practice through which the social structure of African nations is under foreign control / attack needs to end.
If big political players will not listen to such advice, then at least the church should stand on its conscience and refuse to share in such oppressive practices. That is – the church should be at the forefront of encouraging African people to take responsibility for themselves. A part of this, is that it should encourage the use of indigenous languages. I believe that the Gospel of Christ is not about oppressing a people or forcing them into economic subservience, as secular society is currently doing to Africa. I believe God would rather have people set free to worship him than to be bound to do so for their survival (as can happen with the prosperity Gospel).
There is an alternative, ancient and much tried and tested if difficult alternative model of intervention in societies other than one’s own. That is, the historic practice of the missionary. His / her work has over centuries had a such major impact as to cause enormous changes across the globe. But the very key to his/her success, I suggest, is the refusal to use the means of economic obligation, political clout or legal enforcement. Instead the missionary, once having learned their language and lived amongst them in a way of vulnerable humility, appeals to people to hear the words of God. That is what vulnerable mission is about.
[1] Hence national boundaries that are internationally recognised are those that were drawn by colonial powers, national presidents reside in what was once the accommodation of the chief colonial officer, African government structure continues to follow European models, European languages are used in administration and so on.
