Tobi Trueman Posted
The positive impacts
and importance of the use of the English
language in Nigeria
and the world all over cannot be overemphasized.
It shears the
Vale/barriers in communication amongst others. But as my
dear Physicist,
Isaac Newton would put it, 'To every action, there is
an equal and
opposite reaction' and as an addendum for better
comprehension, my
countrymen would say ' Bring suya bring suya, na Cow
body dey suffer am'
(pun intended) loose translation: Every action has
a consequence.
To be detrimental is
to be harmful or hazardous to something.
There are about 521
spoken languages in Nigeria of which 9 of them are
now
extinct,according to WIKIPEDIA. This
calls for worrying, thus, a
driven force for
this writeup; to proffer suggestions for lasting
solution to bridge
the gap.
Taking Delta state,
Warri precisely as a case study ( 'na where person
know for day time e dey go for night'), where Urhobo (amongst
others
tribes) is its local
language, I'll analyze three special cases:
PARENTAL FAILURE: In
a bid to educate their wards on written
and
spoken English and
not the 'so called bad one, Pidgin English' ,
parents are lacking
in their parental and cultural
responsibilities
of inculcating into
their children the native norms/values and
language passed unto
them by their ancestors. It is a shame to a
family if their
Children cannot speak their native tongue. Hence every
parents should
endeavor to do the needful, the young ones should be
made to see the
significance of imbibing their cultural norms and
language.
THE SOCIETY: Yes, it
is expedient to make conspicuous and elucidate
that everyone in Delta state, Warri precisely, can
relate to the
disguise on people's
face when a person takes the bold step of
communicating in
thick accent of Urhobo language or other
languages
aside English or
Pidgin especially in public place as
such an
individual would be
stereotyped uncivilized. Then these same
categories of people
would be the first to cast the stone when the
individual is almost
inutile or not fluent in the local
language.
THE INDIVIDUAL: Being educated is no excuse to relinquishing
our
native tongues to
the background. Take for example in an higher
institution, where
speaking refined English language is paramount to
be dubbed as an intelligent person and even feted like
Hon.Patrick
Obahiaghon (Grammar
destroyer), then someone who is keen to voice out
his/her language
would automatically earn the title of being 'an
indigene'.
NIGERIANS IN
DIASPORA
It's no doubt no
small number of Nigerians are living in abroad either
on a pursuit of
greener pasture, business or academic purposes and
recreation. Thus, many
may draw excuse from this as the reason they
are wanting in their
ability/fluency to speak their local languages.
Even within Nigeria, imagine a man from the west who lives in the
north, probability
of him being fluent in his mother tongue is 1/10
SOLUTION
1.Let everyone be
encouraged to speak his mother tongue with boldness
and be proud of it
2.Well-explained
materials such as novels,poems e.t.c should be
written and the
local language be introduced in some section of the
local magazines (if
not, have its own newspaper)
3. Online platform
should be used to propagate and teach the local
languages. YouTube
tutorial videos on how to speak and the glory of
the culture would go
a long way in curbing this detrimental effect of
the English language on local languages in Nigeria and other affected
countries.
The last, but
paramount, someone once said that 100
years from now,
most languages in
Nigeria would be extinct due to the unconscious
negligence and
unconcerned efforts of imbibing the language ourselves
and inculcating it
and its importance into the young ones. Let's not
allow this to
happen,let's join hands to uphold our local language
everywhere we go,
and what a heart-felt glamorous smile we would steal
from the faces of
our ancestors.
Written by By A.O Festus
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