The Language Question and the Use of Paremiography in Modern African Literature: A Case Study of Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman

Abstract

This paper endeavours to shed some light on the issue of language and the modern African writer. The core concern of this paper is not, however, whether it is significant for African writers to use European languages or African languages in their creative works. On the main, the paper wishes to explore the extent to which the use of transliterated proverbs in African writing contribute to the rekindling of African value systems as well as the affirmation of African indigenous knowledge systems. The analysis of the two texts will be confined to how Achebe and Soyinka abrogate the English language to infuse African speech acts as well as African cosmology through the extensive use of paremiography (proverbial language). The selection of these two texts is intentional in that they project African worldviews in a manner that can contribute to the current debate on the ‘decolonisation of education’ in South Africa as they negate the subordination of African values and cultures.