The Problem of Cognitive Language in African Philosophy

Abstract

This paper examines the problems of cognitive language in African philosophical discourse. The method adopted by the paper is analytic. According to the paper, each language is culturally charged in a subtle way that distinguishes it from others. The language that naturally speaks to man is the carrier and conservator of his philosophy. African languages carry African philosophy within them—some in the form of abstract logical thoughts, some in poems, and others in myth or in proverbs. But in African philosophical discourse, African philosophers are forced by circumstances to abandon the language that informed their thoughts and experiences in favour of a foreign language. In an attempt to evaluate his African world and project an outlook on life through the foreign language, he falls back on myths and superstitions because the foreign language cannot analyse his African background with precision. Given that the fact of colonisation and ongoing neo-colonization forces African philosophers to discuss African philosophy in a foreign language rather than the language that naturally speaks to them, The paper observed that African philosophic discourse is threatened by the problems of double thought channels and imprecision in expression and understanding that becloud the reproduction of the natural equivalence of the message in the source language into the receptor language. The paper concludes that the scenario is schizophrenic; it forecloses African lives and cultures from coming alive and arising from the interactions of their daily existence with reality on the ground.