Re: Chinua Achebe born (16/11/1930)

 Ar an seachtú lá déag de mí na Samhain, scríobh Ross Clark:

 > Nigerian novelist, poet and critic. Lived until 2013.
 >
 > He wrote in English.

His “Things Fall Apart” was on the local English secondary school syllabus here
in the 90s, a good book.

 > "This English, then, which I am using, has witnessed peculiar events in my land
 > that it has never experienced anywhere else. The English language has never
 > been close to Igbo, Hausa, or Yoruba anywhere else in the world. So it has to
 > be different, because these languages and their environment are not inert. They
 > are active, and they are acting on this language which has invaded their
 > territory."
 >
 > So Nigerian English. But a very educated NigEng, not Fela Kuti's Pidgin or even
 > Amos Tutuola's indigenized colloquial.
 >
 > "...those who can do the work of extending the frontiers of English so as to
 > accommodate African thought patterns must do it through their mastery of
 > English and not out of innocence."
 >
 >  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinua_Achebe

We’ve had a certain amount of Nigerian immigration here in Ireland; most of the
Nigerians I’ve known have been doctors, but there was plenty of less-educated
immigration that has died off as Ireland became more credentialist. I don’t
think I ever heard one of my doctor colleague speak a non-English language on a
personal call, in contrast to, e.g. the Pakistanis and the Arabs.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)