# Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o **Entity class:** Person (Kenyan novelist and theorist, 1938–2025) **Domain:** Postcolonial Theory / Language Politics **Concept Hub:** [[wiki/Linguistic Imperialism|Linguistic Imperialism]] ## Definition **Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o was the Kenyan writer whose *Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature* (1986) argued that colonial languages imposed through schooling colonize the mind, and who turned from English to Gĩkũyũ as his language of creative writing.** ## Language as Carrier of Culture Ngũgĩ distinguishes language as a means of communication from language as a carrier of culture: "Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world." His account of English-medium education in colonial Kenya is the lived counterpart of [[wiki/Macaulay's Minute on Indian Education|Macaulay's Minute]] and the classroom form of [[wiki/Semiotic Colonization|semiotic colonization]]. [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] cites him to show why the holder of a language's reference layer shapes how its speakers perceive themselves. ## Relationships - **Concepts:** [[wiki/Linguistic Imperialism|Linguistic Imperialism]] · [[wiki/Semiotic Colonization|Semiotic Colonization]] · [[wiki/Language|Language]] · [[wiki/Semiotic Sovereignty|Semiotic Sovereignty]]. - **Source article:** [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] in [[collections/War With Empire|War With Empire]]. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world.” > **— Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o**, *Decolonising the Mind, 1986* [[reminders/Identity/Language Carries the Values Through Which We Perceive Ourselves by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o|Language Carries the Values Through Which We Perceive Ourselves by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o]] ## Sources / Provenance - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, [“The Language of African Literature”](https://newleftreview.org/issues/i150/articles/thiongo-ngugi-wa-the-language-of-african-literature), *New Left Review* I/150 (March–April 1985); reprinted as chapter 1 of *Decolonising the Mind* (James Currey / Heinemann, 1986).