Weep Not, Child and how the author uses language?

Although many of Ngugi's later books were written in Kikuyu and then translated into English, Weep Not, Child was originally written in English. There is, nonetheless, a sense of the African voice in the rhythms of the work, through the use of oral storytelling, proverbs, and the spiritual connection to ancestral lands and deities. These, almost supernatural, connections and the language in which they are described are somewhat foreign to a Western audience, whose comprehension of spirituality may be limited, primarily, to that found within a church. It is apparent that Mr. Howlands, who lives within an African community, has little understanding of the attachment.

The novel also makes interesting use of the Swahili and Kikuyu languages, mixing them in with the otherwise English text. On many occasions, the use of the African word presents a concept that is not fully translatable into English, such as the irimu, who were mythical god-like creatures and ancestors to the Kikuyu people. The explanation would interrupt the flow of the text, and imply that the novel has been written for a foreign audience, rather than for Kenyans who can read English, Swahili and Kikuyu and, therefore, understand the concepts.

One other key use of the Swahili language is in interactions between Africans and white settlers, such as Mr. Howlands or European police officers. Mr. Howlands greets Ngotho daily in Swahili, and the homeguards instruct Njoroge in Swahili to call the police who are interrogating him 'affendi' (a term used for high military officers in the Kenyan army). It is likely that, for the most part, the Africans in the story, who are all part of the Kikuyu clan, would have spoken Kikuyu to each other, and the English would likely have spoken English. This would mean that much of each group's interactions would be incomprehensible to the other, and Swahili would work as a lingua franca to enable communication between them. The dialogue is written in Swahili in order to highlight this change that both parties make in order to communicate. Although the homeguard would have been able to speak Kikuyu with Njoroge, it would be safer for all of them if they were to speak a language that would be intelligible by the Europeans as well.