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By adminadmin on December 26, 2015



A Language dies when it is not an intrinsic part of the production and reproduction of knowledge, where the Language problematic leads to a crisis in the educational system. Language defines the culture and character of a people; without it, there will be no social relations hence no culture. Part of colonialism’s after-effects was the dispersal of African languages through the creation of artificial national boundaries splitting the same Language into different geo-political territories as well as subjugating the Languages within the same territory to colonialist Language suzerainty.
This feat allowed unfettered colonial access to the mind of the African, hence to his/her thought processes and because colonialism would not have succeeded without the total subjugation of the person, it became an impossibility for the African to think his/her way through the underdevelopment foisted on the colony. Which is why all of Africa’s developmental models lack any depth, stuck on being an appendage of colonial paradigms with the much-vaunted need for “patriotism” always falling far short of its intended purposes; for Language produces the internal necessity and consciousness in a people that enables the transformation of the environment/society; it is Language that ties the individual to both whatever the professional path is chosen as well as to the society itself.
The multiplicity of Languages in Nigeria, instead of being the pathway to development, have become the albatross where all attempts at development were subsets of the thought processes of the “mother country”, hence the gradual descent into an import-dependent economy since the denigration of the Language led to what becomes of the society it represents, even when some of the former colonies or semi-colonies like Singapore, India, China were able to overcome this Language problematic to become major global economic and political entities.
That some other under-developed countries were unable to overcome this problematic, in spite of their Language consciousness, only point to the limitations of their ruling entities, compared to what obtained in the Western Region where the Egbe Omo Oduduwa at inception, placed a lot of emphasis on Language, especially the development and promotion of the Yoruba Language through its Literature Committee, whose mandate included the development of Yoruba Language, research into Yoruba History, philosophy, art, science and herbal medicine, with its political expression in the Action Group Government’s setting up of a committee to explore possibilities of writing scientific books in the Yoruba Language, a precursor to the acknowledgement of science being directly tied to any form of development. This is besides promoting Literature-in-Yoruba Language through various writers, foremost of whom was D.O Fagunwa. All of these, and more, formed part of the totality of Yoruba Language’s contributions to the educational and developmental programs and policies of both the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and the Action Group, both becoming an integral part of the “free education” paradigm, the flagship of Yoruba development.

In these times, Yoruba scholars have discovered that Yoruba Language can play a decisive role in this process of scientific development. At a Lecture held in honor of the late Aremu Majolagbe Laosebikan, Professor Adebisi Afolayan viewed Yoruba Language as the most effective means of achieving true literacy and that contrary to popular belief, Yoruba and not English is the Language by which Yoruba children can acquire literacy permanently, functionally, creatively and prophetically, adding, “Yoruba language enhances understanding of contemporary mathematics issues and problems confronting the world.“ According to Professor Afolayan, “Laosebikan was able to assert in his life time that future Yoruba children would achieve modern science and technology development by learning mathematics through the medium of Yoruba language.”
J. Fakinlede, author of “Yoruba-Modern Practical Dictionary” says that it is better to teach a child any subject in the native Language; a position confirmed by the experience of the Ife Model School where all subjects were taught to two sets of students in Yoruba and English Languages resulting in better academic and test performance by those taught in Yoruba Language. He further posits that a ten-year old Yoruba child has already acquired enough Yoruba Language skills to learn science and mathematics probably to the university level; that the same child would probably not have the proficiency in English language, at that age, to go beyond the early grades in a secondary school. Hence, such a child learning science and mathematics in Yoruba therefore can have close to ten years advantage over his counterpart who may be learning the same subject matter in English.
However, if an English speaking child were to learn Yoruba well and continue to be taught science and mathematics in Yoruba Language, he also could conceivably do better than when he is being taught the subject matter in English thus making Yoruba a better Language to use to teach science and mathematics than English language.
He goes on to use, as an example, the human body wherein a Yoruba can name most parts of the human body in Yoruba at the age of nine by mere assimilation, although there are many internal organs with which he may not be familiar, but if he has the opportunity to see and be taught the names of those parts in Yoruba, it may take him less than three months to master most of them. It would take the same Yoruba child probably another six years to reach the level of proficiency in English that would make him perform that task.
The nature of the two languages is the reason why it is easier for a Yoruba to use it in science and mathematics; Yoruba Language being what could be called an additive language, which makes it more organized, and therefore, more scientific whereas English is a Language borne out of turbulence. In leaning Yoruba, a child needs to learn the phonemes that constitute the words, he can then form, or understand other words based on the mastery of these phonemes. Thus, even if a Yoruba person has never heard a word before, he can, by analysis, atupale, come to a good understanding of it; meaning that, in most instances, the meaning of a Yoruba word can be found within the word itself.

On the other hand, an English word has to be learnt in its entirety. A person cannot conclude that since he knows the meanings of the words stand and under, he can arrive at the meaning of the word[b] understand[/b], which is why it is almost superfluous to create a Yoruba – Yoruba dictionary, while English – English dictionaries proliferate. J.Fakinlede is of course not inferring that Yoruba should immediately be substituted for English in teaching science and mathematics in our schools. He is just stating that the problem of teaching science and mathematics in Yoruba Language does not lie with the Language itself but elsewhere.

This “elsewhere” is precisely in the separation of the study of Yoruba Language only as an academic subject and not as the Language of Instruction in all of our educational institutions. Using it as the Language of Instruction will entail a complete overhaul of our educational system from its current haphazard nature into its consolidation as a Regional System thereby maximizing the training and retraining of teachers of and in the Language with the additional benefit of having translators and researchers and production of text-books hence becoming an economic powerhouse in itself.
The combination of all of these will engender the necessary “spirit of development” needed to re-order the economic and cultural life of Yoruba people, more so in a global sense, where, with the scope of the researches done about Yoruba culture and society, especially in Western academic circles, gives fillip to its application.

The “ Yoruba Diaspora Triad”, the “first” being those transplanted due to the slave trade and who had found their niche in the new world, especially in the West Indies and South America, the second being those especially in West Africa being wholly Yoruba but for colonial geo-political manipulation and the third being the recent, mostly economic, migrants to the Western World, whose offspring are always conflicted as to their cultural identities, are daily confronted with this Language problematic with the implication of this Diaspora not manifesting itself properly within the global mix. Yet, this can be corrected only if the Language does not go into extinction either by itself or becoming assimilated into some “global” imperative or substituted by new amalgam of languages. Avoiding this possibility makes it necessary for its transformation into the Language of Instruction in the production and reproduction of our knowledge base thus becoming a complementary Language for our Diaspora and an advantage in all of our developmental processes.