RE: STEEMIT GRAMMAR CLASS #1: SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
Stumbled across your blog and it's nice to see some serious writers here. This post is interesting, though. I used to be super grammar conscious, get irritated when people didn't use me and I properly and so on. Until I read this book by Kory Stamper, a lexicographer at Merriam Webster. She just changed the way I looked at the English language. The book talks about how language, particularly grammar is constantly changing and what we deem is 'incorrect' now was possibly correct some years (or centuries) ago.
I also learnt the difference between all the cases that you mentioned in school in a similar fashion but reading it now makes it seem so daunting, haha. I think language needs to be more about feeling and if the grammar feels right, it should work.
I see you used the term native speaker. I'm curious to know what you think classifies someone as a native speaker?
Well the native is some one who is an indigene of a particular culture and language is an integral aspect of a people's culture. It therefore stands to reason that a native speaker will be a person for whom, English is a part of his or her culture. It is not surprising language of choice but of identity.
All over the world, the English language is the common currency of communication. It is spoken and written in every country in the world. This has therefore brought about some intermarriage between the English language and the cultures it has been assimilated into. As a result, you have several kinds of English and new words taken from other ethnicities are being injected into the English dictionary as time goes.
Despite this, the English language still is a received language for most people. If they do not infuse their own identity into the language, they cannot use it suitably.
When it comes to grammar, to pronunciation and to spelling, only the British English and the American English are considered not your English or the Nigerian English. In fact, in schools in most anglophone speaking countries in Africa, it is the British English; accent, pronunciation, grammar, etc that is taught.
A native speaker of a language on the other hand, can in my own opinion, be considered to be someone whose first language of communication was the English language. We have seen the influx of this new generation of Africans who cannot speak their mother tongue and are shut off from a part of their cultural identity. These Africans speak only English and are fluent to a degree in it.
But does fluency makes one a native speaker? Does that give you the identity of an English man? Does it help you understand the accents, dialects of the English language as spoken by the English people? Do you feel like you belong to their culture because you know how to cross your t and dot your I?
Well articulated. I asked because I don't have a language if I don't have English. Sure, we're also taught British English at school, albeit the accent. We learn the pronunciation, grammar, literature etc.
I've been speaking in English for as long as I can remember and English is not just my first language of communication but also the language that I think in. So it brings me to ask the same vein questions you put forth in your comment.
Of course, I don't feel like I belong to a British culture, I've never been there. I may not understand all the dialects. But Britian left its colonies the English language which each country has appropriated.Like you said, I'm a part of the 'new generation' for whom English is a first language. I don't think I've ever been shut off from a part of my cultural identity, though. I speak a couple of Indian languages and some French. But English has been a part of my culture ever since I was born and has been much more than just crossing my t's and dotting my i's. It is the language that I walk, talk, breathe and sleep. If I'm not a 'native' English speaker, where does that leave me? Just existentialist questions from someone who was born in the colonial hangover :)
You are lucky, at least you have some Indian dialects and French, I have just English. As long as language is a part of one's culture, then some part of one's culture is lost.
I can say that Britain did not influence India as much as Nigeria because you still practice your religion, you still use Hindu in most of your interaction, right? In Nigeria, our languages and religion is slowly fading.
At the end though, no matter how well we speak the language and indeed we do speak it well, we are not native speakers. The English language is a received language.
It's interesting to hear your thoughts on the matter. For me, culture is not just language. I don't feel like I've lost out on my culture because I speak English or French better than Indian languages. I'm not sure I can comment on the extent of British influence in India versus Nigeria as I'm woefully ignorant about British influence in Africa. But I don't think that a coloniser's influence is measured only by religion practice or language.
A lot of Indians practice many different religions, sure. These come from different parts of the world. What is 'our' religion and 'their' religion anyway? If you try telling an Indian Christian that their religion was not a part of Indian culture, you'd get a lot of smirks and flak. Christianity has been a part of Indian culture from as early as the 2nd century.
Since you asked about practicing our religion and using language in our interaction: Hinduism is a religion and Hindus are those who follow Hinduism. Hindi is one of the official languages of the country and actually, I don't use it in any of my interaction :) (Just to clarify! A lot of people think Hindu is a language) I come from the South and Hindi is not the norm. It's common to see a lot of people using English to speak with each other.
About your comment on Nigerian languages and religion fading away - all cultures evolve and transform with time. Historical events definitely play a role in these changes but I wouldn't look at it as a fading away. Rather I think that culture assimilate the past and evolve to become something new which will change again in a few centuries. I don't buy the whole preservationist attitude to culture. What we have today as a local culture or identity is an incremental build-up over centuries and we're facing more incremental changes now. If this change didn't exist, we would never grow.
My argument is that we need to redefine the way we accept native English speakers. Embrace the past and make a new present.
I understand your points and I can see how your thoughts are aligned in this matter but there is something that you have not considered.
The British in the colonisation of Nigeria used the policy of assimilation which meant the taking up of the British way of life. To achieve this, the study of the English language was encouraged. Why was this done? Because language is the vehicle with which the culture of a people is spread.
Language might not be the sum total of your cultural identity but it is the tool of your culture's preservation. It is the voice with which culture speaks.
You say you do not believe in the cultural preservation thing, I am glad for you. You are a man who looks to the future with bright eyes but I am not.
In a country with over 365 languages minus dialects, whole ethnic groups are disappearing. The thing that made them unique, their history, their philosophy, their knowledge of the earth, their stories, are going. That bothers me.
I don't want a Nigeria that speaks only English, whether it be a new type of English or not. What makes English better than my mother tongue? What attribute besides colonialism gives English the right of overlord over my language?
Thank you for clarifying the issue of Hinduism, Hindi and Hindus. Learnt something new there.
If we will not preserve aspects of our culture that is beautiful; if we will forget our people's stories, their philosophy, their art, their music, their dance, what do we have to links us to our roots.
This is not just about preservation of culture but about who we are. Why did the author of Roots seek his ancestry after so many years had passed? Why do children seek their parents?
Language keeps culture breathing and if we but could speak certain languages from the ancient world, what we would learn will be astounding and that is a damn shame.
Thank you @manouche for coming around and interacting like this. I am enjoying this interaction. This is how it is supposed to be. Peace.
I enjoy this kind of interaction too. Pushes me to think, understand and develop new views of my own :)
I want this too because it is quite annoying the way people look at me when I say I cannot speak my language only English.
English assimilates a lot of other languages into it, so newer words that are part of other languages have found their way into the English language. Most of these words are introduced by non-native speakers who are trying to introduce an idea that has no language expression in the English language into it.
For example; Garri is a popular food eaten here in Nigeria. It is made from cassava. The English language has no word for garri as it is not a part of their culture, so the word bad been introduced by Nigerians into it.
So we can say that non native speakers of language are the ones bringing the spice to the language.
Native speakers of the language are in most cases no better or sometimes even worse than non native speakers. The fact that an American or British speaks the English language does not mean that they speak or write it well.