By Ọmọọba Olusesan Alabi
Every February 21 is recognized worldwide as the International Mother Language Day. As its name implies, it is a day to commemorate indigenous mother tongues all over the world. The date commemorates the 1952 Language Movement in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), where students were killed while protesting for the recognition of their mother tongue, Bengali. The recognition was proclaimed in November 1999 by UNESCO and formally recognized by the UN General Assembly in 2002. This year’s celebration is the 25th edition.
Its celebration across many nations takes different shapes. In Nigerian, celebration is mainly by the media and educational institutions. Schools and organizations host poetry recitations, multilingual storytelling, and cultural festivals to showcase diverse languages. In the Southwest, Egbe Akomolede Yoruba, a socio-cultural group cutting across Yoruba language teachers and media practitioners, is at the forefront of the annual event.
In recent years however, it appears that the day is confused with and often overshadowed with Cultural Day. Hence you find schools including cultural matters like traditional dresses, songs, cooking and all what not into the celebration. There is nothing wrong with this except for the fact that more often than not, and unfortunately so, the crux of the matter, which is the Mother Tongue takes the back stage in the celebrations.
The significance of the mother tongue cannot be overemphasized. The mother tongue, a language inherited from one’s ancestors, plays a vital role in shaping identity, culture, and community. It is a key component of cultural heritage, connecting individuals to their history, traditions, and community. Without Mother tongue, it becomes easy for a group of people to lose their identity, culture and even history. Without it, preservation of Traditional Knowledge becomes impossible. Indigenous languages often hold traditional knowledge about environment, medicine, and culture, all of which would be lost when the language disappears. When this happens, effective communication within communities, social cohesion and cooperation take a flight leaving a community afloat and wandering like a rudderless ship.
History gives us a lesson from the nation of Israel. One major factor that aided the rebirth of Israel as a nation in the last century was their language. Following the destruction of their nation in A.D. 70, the Jews were scattered across many nations of Europe, North Africa and the Americas. Everywhere in the diaspora, the Jews spoke two languages. They would speak Yiddish, (a version of Hebrew), at home and the language of their host community outside. With their language, they kept their identity; held on to their history; maintained their religion; sustained unity; survived pogroms; migrated back to their homeland and revived a two thousand year dead nation. Without their language, there would have been no nation called Israel today.
UNESCO Studies show that worldwide, approximately 40% of the world’s 7,000+ languages are currently endangered, with one language disappearing roughly every two weeks. This should send danger signals to African and most third world indigenous communities where foreign and colonial languages are given prominence over the mother tongue. This danger is very apparent in Nigeria. The English language has dominated and is on the verge of erasing indigenous languages. The language of communication in government and educational institutions is English. There is no tier of government where the indigenous language is recognized and utilized as official means of communication. Of course, we have various proclamations about using and teaching the indigenous language. But in reality, these are mere window-dressing not taken beyond the policy declarations.
Each year comes with a theme. The focus this year is the role of young people in shaping the future of multilingual education. The theme focuses on “Youth voices on multilingual education” (or “Many languages, one future: youth voices on multilingual education”). It emphasizes the vital role of young people in defending, revitalizing, and utilizing technology to promote linguistic diversity, education, and identity in a rapidly evolving, interconnected world. This theme could not have come at a better time. The youth of today are the tomorrow of their communities. If they can speak, write and communicate in their mother tongue, the language will live. If not, the language dies with them. Unfortunately however, a large percentage of today’s youth can neither speak nor write in their mother tongue.
Whereas research by UNESCO shows that children taught in their mother tongue during early years are 30% more likely to read with understanding by the end of primary school. Yet in Nigeria, focus have shifted from the mother tongue to the language of the colonialists. Ironically, it is the generation that learnt with their indigenous languages that went later to evolve policies detrimental to local languages. Our languages have been derogated as vernaculars. At various homes, the new elite do not speak local languages to their children. It is now possible for a child to grow up in the heartland of Ekiti and not be able to speak Yoruba!
A child brought up under this set up loses many things. The cultural values embedded in our language, the proverbs and the native intelligence that come with the language are automatically lost. Such a child lacks the cultural identity of being an African. He is brought up to think, speak and write as an Englishman. This is however a double edged sword that harms rather than build the young man. As an African brought up to be English, he becomes alien to his own language and culture. He sees himself more English than Yoruba. His only connection to Yoruba is that he lives in Nigeria. However, when juxtaposed with a native born English, he is still an alien because he could not measure up to English values and culture.
Even our children born and bred overseas and raised within the English and America cultural milieu, still have something missing. They still have identity crisis. While trained to discard their black identity, they discover that they don’t fit into the English system. No matter what they do and how best they try, the whites do not accept them. They are more tolerated than accepted. In the midst of these, they become aliens to their own and their host community. They find themselves in a dilemma of neither being blacks nor whites. In reaction, we see them struggling with identity and shouts for recognition. These are manifested through negative character traits like dreadlocks, sagging, homosexuality, dropping out of school and even crimes.
Their counterparts at home are not better off either. They are aliens in their own land: Aliens to their mother tongue, culture, values and history. When values like chastity, honesty and diligence all encapsulated in our proverbs, folktales and idiomatic expressions are not taught, the result is a degenerate youth population we see today. The danger in all these is not only the death of languages, for when a language dies, it is like the burning of a library. The history dies. The culture vamooses. The knowledge goes extinct.
Unfortunately, the emphasis on foreign languages had not translated to meaningful development and a better society. Rather than help us think solutions, it has only shifted our focus on help from abroad. Studies have shown that people understand and develop fast with their own languages. All the nations of the developed world do speak their own languages, not foreign ones. Many former colonies of Britain that are developed today first dropped the English Language in favor of indigenous languages. India and the Asian Tigers speak and write in their own languages.
What then do we do? There should be an intentional and deliberate revival and concentration on our indigenous languages. It is time we went beyond sloganeering to active enforcement. We can start by inculcating it in our educational curriculum. Truly, teachers may be scarce. We can re-employ elderly and retired language teachers on contract basis. Government at various levels should employ the language in official communications. Our scientists should work at digitalization of our language to make it attractive and learnable to the younger generation. We need keyboards that carry our alphabets and computers that can interact in our mother tongue. Media practitioners should evolve more educative programs in local languages. At the home level, there is a need for re-orientation among the elite. They should note that their language is not derogatory. If they grew up and succeeded with it, generations after them will also succeed.
In conclusion, the death of the mother tongue portrays great danger for affected communities in Africa and many third world countries. When a mother tongue dies, a lot of things go with it. The future of our mother tongue is with the youth. If the youth are not taught, there goes the mother tongue with its multiple merits. There should therefore be intentional policy framework and affirmative action by all concerned to ensure that our languages live.
Ọmọọba Olusesan writes from Osi-Ekiti.
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