Language

In the short story, "Fattening for Gabon" I feel that the use of different dialect plays a huge role. At times I really didn't like all the dialect because for me it was quite hard to understand. I think a lot of the words used were French which I don't know much of. This made me pay more attention to the reading and I definitely think it helped me understand the importance more. Languages can show so much about a person, and are definitely a huge part of world literature. For example in "Luxurious Hearses" the languages were very important and showed the difference between religions. I feel the same about this story. The languages in "Fattening for Gabon" show somewhat of a social status. The less educated would speak in an ungrammatically correct way, where as the more educated would be more proper. Yet at the same time I feel that the languages get somewhat mixed and integrated together. I wasn't sure if that was the authors doing or if that is really how it happened.

This led me to think about America, and what it must have been like when all of the different people and cultures stared to settle here. There must have been a huge array of languages spoken and it was probable very hard to understand everyone and communicate well. With all the different languages I'm sure it was common to mix and add words from the different languages together. I think that is a huge part of our culture today, because in our English language we do use words from other languages as our own. I just feel like this is a great way to show world literature. And I'm sure that this was intended by Uwem Akpan (the author of "Fattenint for Gabon") and I just feel like it is very interesting. I feel like different languages are so important because they show us and help us learn about the different cultures throughout the world. So that is why I feel that it was very important for Akpan to put in so much dialogue.


articles about why language is important:

http://www.dirbull.com/articles/benefit-of-different-languages-46.htm
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/redefining_education/98446