How to preserve Africa’s languages

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• From left: Mrs Nelly Ibukun-Oyewole, Principal, Federal Government College, Lagos, who represented the Education Minister, Prof Ruqayyat Ahmed Rufa'i; Mr Philip Oduoza, Group Managing Director, UBA Plc; Prof Ngugi and Ms Ijeoma Aso, Managing Direct

The concern over the disappearance of local languages is not new.But, to renowned Kenyan author Prof Ngugi Wa Thiong' O, failure to invest in teaching children indigenous languages will have grave implications. KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE reports.

As far as nine-year-old Jesse Iriah is concerned, she is not a Nigerian. And she may be right. 
She was born in New York to a Yoruba mother and Edo father.  She speaks only English.  She knows a little Yoruba, though, at least she hears a bit of it when her mother speaks with relatives, but she doesn't understand what Ora, her father's language, is at all. 
"I am American.  I am not a Nigerian," she told this reporter with all sense of seriousness at the prize giving ceremony of the upscale school she attends.  
Asked about how much Yoruba she can speak, she said: "I can speak two proverbs."  One of them is "Ise l'oogun ise", which she learnt at school.
She is among thousands of school-aged children across the country growing up in homes where English is exalted above the mother tongue as the preferred language of communication. 
Her kind are born to a generation of highflying comfortable young professionals, many of whose parents also maintained a similar language regime during their childhood. 
However, renowned Kenyan author Prof Ngugi wa Thiong' O does not think such should be encouraged.  His description of the practice as enslavement took on a whole new meaning for the audience at the Read Africa Launch by UBA Foundation at the UBA Headquarters, Marina, Lagos on Monday last week. 
Urging the foundation to support publishing in local languages, the distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, United States, said: "You don't say there are too many languages in the world. Languages are keys to knowledge.  The more languages you know, the more keys to treasure houses you have.  If you know all the other languages and don't know your language that is called enslavement. If you know your language and add all the other languages, that is called empowerment." 
The impact of his statement on those in attendance was expressed by Mr Kenneth Uzoka, Deputy Managing Director of the bank, who lamented that most parents do not teach their children their languages. 
"Professor has given us a new definition of empowerment.   How many of us can have a conversation with our children in our language? I am not sure we are up to 10 per cent, so that is slavery.  I think we should applaud the professor.  This is a man who has taught in Yale but he converses with his son in their local dialect," he said.
Despite the seeming superiority pupils feel being able to speak English fluently without learning their mother tongue, some of them admitted feeling left out when surrounded by family members speaking their languages.  
Jesse said: "My mummy speaks Yoruba to my aunty, grandmother and uncles.  When we have family gatherings, and everyone is speaking Yoruba, I feel left out."
Another primary school pupil, Gabriel Oliseh, regretted that he could not speak the dialect of the Ukwani people of Delta State.  However, he is making effort to learn Igbo from school and his grandmother.
"I speak some Igbo because I am learning it in school.  Also, my grandmother tries to teach me whenever I go to visit her.  My Daddy speaks his language almost everyday to his friends.  He even speaks Yoruba, Hausa and Tiv.  But he does not speak to us because he knows we cannot understand it," he said.
Mothers are, more often than not, the ones who transfer language skills to their children because they spend more time with them. However, while many underscore the importance of, and make conscious effort to teach, their languages, they do not insist that their children converse with them in those languages.
Mrs Olayinka Bello is proud that her daughter, Opemipo, a Nursery One pupil can speak Yoruba fluently.  However, the little girl will only speak it to the domestic help.
"She speaks Yoruba and understands, although she won't speak to you; she will speak with the house help. It is bullshit not to be able to speak your language to your children.  I had that experience with my elder brother.  They started having children in 1994 and decided not to speak vernacular to them as they called it.  They were surprised that my little girl speaks Yoruba and yet speaks English more fluently than their grown up children," she said.
Another mother, Mrs Ene Ndame, from Otukpo in Benue State, who is married to a Deltan, said her children, Isioma and Ikechukwu, pick a little of the two languages but still converse predominantly in English at home.  For someone who learnt her Idoma mother tongue as a teenager, she said parents who have no languages to transfer to their children are lost.
"You can never be lost with your language.  I have friends my age that do not speak their languages.  I learnt mine in secondary school. So, if I could learn, anybody can.  Those ones who cannot speak their languages have nothing to pass on.  They are already lost. If not English, a child should learn with his local language," she said.
The "If not for English" factor is the reason Mrs Julie Okoronkwo, a teacher, does not encourage her children to speak their mother tongue at home. Actually, my children don't speak but can understand my language.  We don't speak the language to them.  They pick it from our conversation.  The reason we don't speak to them is because we want them to be fluent in English.  When they are fluent in English, they can start speaking my language," she said.
However, language experts agree that young children can pick many languages easily without any confusion as early as age three.  Miss Misan Rewane, an MBA student at Harvard Business School on Seven-Up Plc scholarship, has participated in similar research.
"Under the age of five, children can learn up to seven languages.  I did a research in India relating to it.  If you greet a two-year-old Indian in English, he will reply in English.  If you greet in Hindi, they answer in English," she said.
Prof Ngugi seeks the enthronement of local languages above English, French and Portugese, describing them as the languages of power in Africa.  But, for this to happen, he said government must make the necessary investment.
Despite the National Policy on Education stipulating that children should be taught in their mother tongue or the language of the environment for the first three years of primary education, it is not being practised in most parts of Nigeria.  However, one of the proponents of the use of indigenous dialects as language of instruction, the late Prof Babs Fafunwa, demonstrated the workability with a research he carried out in the 90s. Entitled: “The Ife Primary Education Research Project,” the control group used for the research were taught all subjects in Yoruba Language for six years.  The pupils were found not to be disadvantaged in anyway as a result of learning in Yoruba.
Nowadays, it is not easy to find teachers of local languages as they tend to be less favoured than their counterparts who teach English and other science subjects, a fact which the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), Prof Muhammad Junaid, admitted in an interview.
He said: "Nigeria's language policy is that teaching must be carried out in the local language or the language of the environment in the first three years of primary school education. For instance, teaching in the Southwest zone must be carried out in Yoruba as the dominant language. But the problem again is where to get adequate teachers to take on the subject at this lower level. So, the policy is there, but implementation and lack of teachers have been the problem. Now, we are trying to encourage more people to study local languages and become teachers, who will be able to deliver the curriculum at that level of education."
However, some organisations are making efforts to help school children and others learn local languages they are unable to pick from home or their environment.  One of them is the National Institute of Cultural Orientation (NICO), which organises indigenous language workshops annually.
Mr Ohi Ojo, head of the Southwest zone of the agency headquartered in Akure, the Ondo State Capital, told The Nation that the one-month language programme helps children, especially those from privileged background, to learn their mother tongue.
"We have many children from private primary schools attending the programme.  A lot of them do not have cultural and language programmes in school.  Many of the children are from the so-called elite schools. Children who are from mixed marriages usually attend.  It is about creating awareness so that when they get to the streets, they can pick up a lot more," he said.