Language: Africa and missed priorities

Hello Steemians! 

Today i shall be looking at the importance of language to Africans and some of the thing we 'ignorantly' prioritize over our heritage.

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Being an African is a wonderful feeling and a blessing considering our rich cultures. African is blessed with many natural resources which has made us very important economically. Whether the importance is to our disadvantage or advantage is one of the thing to be decided later after reading this.

Growing up, i read some of our histories from how we were colonized to when we gained freedom, the prices paid during the slave era, how Africans were regarded as barbaric, how cocoa was making waves for some African countries and many more.

While many have argued that colonialism brought us many developments, i am not one of those people. You wonder what they mean by 'development'.  Development is one word that could mean many things. I will like to look at the meaning by relating it to social and economic values. Let me quickly consider two definitions of development.

Development is the process of adding improvements to a parcel of land, such as grading, subdivisions, drainage, access, roads, utilities. source 

The above, perhaps, truly explain the type of development we got during the colonial era. It can also be defined as the process of economic and social transformation that is based on complex cultural and environmental factors and their interactions.

The above looks at the transformational importance of development which takes cognizance of both cultural and environmental factors. It is on the second stance that i refuse to accept that we were developed then as a people. 

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It has actually been argued that the 'development' we saw then was a means to an end which was rather in favor of the colonizers and not the colonized.

During the colonial era, Africans need to communicate with their colonizers and as such were made to learn their (colonizers) languages (Different countries colonized different African countries). As a result we adopted those languages as our official languages.

Now the reason for the title above. Language is a culture of the people. It is their heritage. It is that which reminds the people of their history. It is an extension of their being. It is the definer of their identity. Without language, it is impossible to express customs/traditions, heritage, folktales, etc.

But today, every African parent want their children to speak the foreign languages fluently that in the process they call their own languages vernacular!!!

I am still wondering if they know the meaning of the word 'vernacular'! Vernacular means the language of your mother's tongue which is not 'learnt' or imposed as a second language! 

We practical missed the importance of our language which is a reminder of our heritage by simply imposing another language on our children. Today, when i see what some self acclaimed Yoruba (tribe in Nigeria) people write as Yoruba language, i weep! I think writing is even more harder than speaking (because of the uniqueness of languages). Some cannot even speak their language fluently. You will be forced to asked them how come they cannot speak their language? The responses you will get would get you confused! 

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Can we say because we want to learn another language, then we should forget our heritage? Do not forget that you cannot translate and transliterate correctly from one language to another because in the process of translating, we add or remove the meanings. Some words are even polysemous which make it more complex and at the same time explains the dynamism of languages. 

I shall use some examples from Yoruba to illustrate this: 

Igba means:

a) 200

b) calabash

c) garden egg

d) time

Ojo means:

a) name

b) rain

c) coward

Ore means:

a) friend

b) place

c) name

The above are some of the uniqueness of the Yoruba language. To differentiate the meanings in writings, we have signs 'aamin'. We have three identified signs which are upper sign '/', lower sign '\' and middle sign '-'. These signs will give meanings to the different words above.

“A man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language. To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks 

Our languages as Africans are very important and we must be proud to speak them. We must make sure it is the first language teach and speak with our children. I wonder where we got the ideology that if we speak in mother's tongue to our children, they will not understand or be able to speak the other languages? It is a wrong belief. 

My parent speak with me in Yoruba. I even went to public schools from primary to university level. The difference between @smyle and many Yoruba people is that i can write and speak Yoruba fluently! My mother's constant use of the language and my interest in the language made me to always pass Yoruba language as a subject in school. I even did Yoruba as elective course in the university and my lowest grade was 'B'!

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Once you lose your language, you lose your identity. Once you stop letting your children know the richness and importance of your language, you throw them into the state of a 'lost of identity'! You cannot separate the language of a people from them. Mother's tongues is the first language and it should remain so. Other languages are second languages and should remain so too! 

Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well. Frantz Fannon

Thanks for reading my work once again! Its your boy @smyle the philosopher

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