CONTENT NOTE: This essay discusses colonialism in language and in translated works, particularly regarding religion. It explores the oppression that is caused through language and through devaluing languages. It does mention, non-graphically, pederasty, rape, racism, human trafficking, murder, and LGBTQIA+phobia.

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Djeneba Deby Bagayoko | Issue 11, Summer 2026

Losing happens. It’s less about willpower and more about circumstances beyond anybody’s control. It can happen because one must win, or it can be because of misplacement, distraction, misremembering. It’s never on purpose. It just happens.

Hiding on the other hand is intentional. Money, information, people. We can hide many things to protect them, or to protect oppressive status, agenda and power.

Translation to legitimise oppression

There’s an italian saying that goes “traduttore, traditore”, i.e. translator, traitor. This maxim is as short as it is efficient in nailing the problem on its head. Translation can never replicate the original speech or text faithfully. Some things will get lost, others will be purposely hidden.

My whole schooling and education revolved around languages. I studied many european dialects at school, moved to the places they were spoken, and worked as an interpreter for refugees and asylum seekers. When I was dreaming of becoming an interpreter in institutions like the u.n. or the european parliament, I remember thinking how much trust (and pressure) was given to translators. After all, how do we really know they’re not making things up? And what happens when they do? When and not if, because it has occurred.

The Odyssey is one of the many ancient texts that are taught to students in the west. Named after its hero and main character, Odysseus (known in latin as Ulysses), it is an epic written by the greek poet Hómēros (Homer). Many people engage with the text and its film renditions via translation. Ancient greek being a dead language, virtually no one goes back to the original poems after learning the tongue. Ancient greek and ancient roman culture have moulded modern european and western worlds. Writings from Hómēros provide legitimacy to and justification for certain cultural traits we find in society today. Men are described as innate leaders, fighters and protectors and are expected to abide by ideals of emotional restraint, self control and strength. Those features, however, may have less to do with ancient world sense and more with later translations.

Professor, author, and translator Emily Wilson did something that may be considered redundant. She re-translated the Odyssey as well as the Iliad. Her work shows how deeply flawed past renditions have been. The english translations (and probably those in other idioms) were made by cis men. They, consciously or not, imbued and corrupted the original text with their own biases and world sense, thus creating a text that doesn’t necessarily reflect the original work. One striking example is reported by Wilson herself in her article for The New Yorker: A Translator’s Reckoning With the Women of the Odyssey. In the piece the classicist states: “After Odysseus slaughters her suitors, he tells Telemachus to kill the female slaves who have slept with them. Contemporary translators and commentators often present the massacre of these women as if it were quite ordinary, and entirely justified. The murdered slaves are routinely described in contemporary American English translations as ‘disobedient maids,’ and are labeled as ‘sluts’ or ‘whores’—a level of verbal abuse that finds absolutely no analogue in the Greek. The killing of these abused slaves (who are usually referred to, euphemistically, as ‘servants’ or ‘maids’) is often described as if it were unquestionably ethical.”

If we move from ancient greece to Ilé Ifẹ̀ in 500 BCE, we would be witnesses to the origin of Yorùbá spirituality or Ìṣẹ̀ṣe. Currently practiced by millions of people across the Black Atlantic, this belief system is ruled by Olódùmarè (also called Ọlọrun), a distant Supreme Being, and a pantheon of Òrìṣà who reflect parts of the Supreme’s attributes.

As the encroachment of european outsiders started happening in West Africa, invaders devised ways to first become familiar with cultural, spiritual, societal, economic and political practices of the places they wanted to conquer. They then demonised them to impose their western versions.

Èṣù (or Ẹlẹ́gba) could be considered as a neutral entity, neither positive or negative. They are a linguist, tasked with carrying messages to Ọlọrun and are the Òrìṣà of chance and unpredictability. Because of this fluidity and the emphasis given to Èṣù’s role as responsible for accidents and a trickster, they have gained a negative connotation.

In order to demonise the Yorùbá belief system in particular and African spirituality in general, Ẹlẹ́gba was mistranslated and assimilated to the euro-christian devil. Playing his advocate, I can understand the need to absorb a foreign concept to the closest thing we know. However, this creates a different outcome that doesn’t align with the original concept with, at times, catastrophic consequences. In Ifá cosmology in fact, Èṣù must be engaged with and this engagement is unfortunately misinterpreted as devil worship.

Remaining in the religious/spiritual realm, let’s look at two of the most famous texts in humanity. Depending on who is wielding them and how, they have saved or wreaked unimaginable havoc: the Bible and the Qur’an.

The how is closely intertwined with translation. When rendering the words of those Scriptures from aramaic and classical arabic (or fuṣḥā arabic), to ancient greek, ancient latin, modern romance languages and beyond, we are bound to change the original text as we make them intelligible to audiences that have experienced linguistic change.

One of the most controversial aspects of Christianity and Islam is their supposed stance on homosexuality and everything that doesn’t fit the boundaries of cis-heteronormativity. These texts, however sacred we may deem them to be, aren’t isolated from their geographical and historical contexts. On the contrary, they open a window to those realities. How the writings, revelations, paraboles and the core figures deal with certain issues allow us to gain insights into past social and cultural practices making the Bible and the Qur’an anthropological documents beyond their holiness.

Jesus (peace be upon him) however never said anything about gay people and Muhammad (peace be upon him) had a servant named Hit who was a mukhannat and stayed in the women’s quarters. Mukhannat is rendered as gay or effeminate man in english. Out of respect for gender and sexual dynamics of Hit’s time, how they may have changed and Hit’s own identity, we’ll use this term and only “translate” it so that people not familiar with the term may get a sense of what it means.

In surah 24 titled An-Nur (The Light) the 31st verse mentions that women aren’t obliged to follow the hijab rules of modesty and gender separation around “male attendants with no desires.” This could refer to ace men or gay men (since the verse is about women, there may have not been a need to state the lack of sexual attraction to women because of the context).

People and translators who, for whatever reason, conflated pederasty (rape of children and teenagers of the same sex as the perpetrator) as practised in ancient greece to consensual same-sex relations triggered a LGBTQIA+-phobic domino effect that echoes to this day. Revisiting those texts and appreciating the richness of language can reveal meanings and interpretations that directly oppose and contradict what we think.

Translation to safeguard and preserve yourself

When we look at one of the gravest crimes against humanity, the capitalist enterprise of human trafficking known as the Trans-Atlantic trade, the lie is that Africans shipped across the ocean didn’t have any culture to hold on to.

African speech was labeled as incoherent “mumbo jumbo” that even the elevated white man struggled to turn into a polished spanish, portuguese, dutch, french and english. Enslavers blamed Africans’ intellectual inferiority (and thick lips) for their inability to correctly pronounce words in european languages and to this day the various Ebonics, Patwas and Creoles are labelled lazy and uneducated speech. Buried under that seemingly european surface are deep African intricacies. These are evidence and testament of stubborn African pride despite the circumstances.

When two or more cultures and languages meet, one can take over the others or a synthesis may occur. Sometimes this synthesis isn’t readily perceived and it may look like one culture or language disappeared. In the case of Ebonics, here defined as the language of Black americans, many miss the African element of the idiom. Outwardly sounding like english, Ebonics is at best described like a subset of a white american dialect.

Without delving into the granular linguistic specificities, all the elements that don’t appear in mainstream white american english are mis-described and misdiagnosed as incorrect speech. But in the words of Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé Bakari Kambon as recorded in Talking Black in America — Roots, that’s not incorrect english. It is correct African.

Here our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic used linguistic transposition as a means to reclaim home and who they are. Enslaved Africans were forbidden from using their mother tongues in the american colonies. In order to circumvent the ban, they engineered a clever device: they used the master’s tongue as a cover for Wolof, Bamanankan, Fulɓe, Mandinka and the whole African Tower of Babel that was forcefully imported to the americas.

While enslavers then and mainstream western society today see this act as the immutable state of Africans’ underdevelopment, what it truly represents is the quiet endurance of African identity, rootedness, retention and pride.

Conclusion

Translation is neither good or bad in and of itself. It is a tool that can be used to bridge gaps or that can be weaponised to deepen differences.

Revolutionary academic Walter Rodney understood the power of language and the flaws and limitations of translation. He took it upon himself to engage texts in their original language by learning tongues like spanish, french and portuguese. This was done to “facilitate his research and to ensure the integrity of translations of original historical documents .”

On the other hand, enslavers and people who thrive on division understood the unifying power of common linguistic understanding and worked tirelessly to prevent solidarity.

I believe that being a part of diasporas, we often don’t know that we’re still remembering. While often done unconsciously and unintentionally, much of our daily practices are part of a tradition of remembrance and embrace of ancestral ways.

While fighting systems of oppression and their limits to our expansive world sense, we use what we are given to define ourselves on our terms. Translation can be wielded to obscure and obfuscate a people’s sense of self. But when in the hands of the oppressed, it can open new portals into the past.

Actively learning my heritage tongue, Bamanankan, and re-engaging the Qur’an and understanding that the translations I use as support are not the original text, broaden my horizon and perspective rather than restrict them.

As people committed to liberation, we must reclaim language and translation and use them to achieve that goal.