Tag: language

  • “sub-saharan africa” doesn’t exist – drop the scissors

    “sub-saharan africa” doesn’t exist – drop the scissors

    So last year we talked about how there is no such thing as the “Arab spring” – yes? yes. And you cut that out of your vocabulary. Good. I thought we wouldn’t need to have a conversation about how there is no such place as “Sub-Saharan Africa”…. but well, it…

  • a proposal to retire the term ‘arab spring’

    1. It’s a misnomer that excludes (further). First word, Arab: there are more ethnicities than Arab in North Africa. Hold up, I’ll say that again. North Africa is not made up of Arabs alone. Tuaregs, various Amazigh communities, Nubian communities and many others, all live in North Africa. Some were…

  • msafiri hakuna barabara – machado in kiswahili

    msafiri hakuna barabara – machado in kiswahili

    Msafiri, nyayo zako Ndizo barabara, sio vinginevyo; Msafiri, barabara haipo, Hutengenezwa kwa kutembea. Kwa kutembea watengeneza njia, Na ukiangaza macho nyuma Utayaona mandhari ambayo katu Hutarudi kuyapitia. Msafiri, hakuna barabara, Bali mawimbi baharini. ya Antonio Machado imetafsiriwa na Wangũi Kamonji Linapatikana hapa katika Kiingereza na Kihispania Huku nikifanya juhudi ya…

  • kwani? literary festival – gems

    I attended some events of the Kwani? Literary Festival that was held 2 weeks ago in various locations around Nairobi. The festival brought together authors from countries including South Africa, Somalia, D.R.C., Senegal, U.S.A., Ghana, Tanzania, Italy and our very own Kenya to consider questions of language in new ways.…

  • thoughts on language

    I just read about the realisation that some documents in the possession of a family in Cape Town are important and were written in Afrikaans using Arabic script. This is the 3rd time that I have come into contact with Arabic script beng used to write languages besides Arabic (apparently…

  • fika vontaji

    Sometimes I wonder what it means to be a woman, sheng’* speaking, running around the world (often enough that I thought to write the poem below {about Brazilian/Paulista hospitality} within my first days of being in São Paulo but didn’t, unfortunately- for the poem). The question of what language to…

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