₦airaland Forum

ArtanK: Somali people too, but because most clans had their own kingdom/sultanate/geradship we had multiple scripts. The Latin orthography was only adopted in 1972. There is hope of bringing back those lost scripts, I hope that happens sometime soon.
This is called Osmanya and it was used by my clan in the north east.
[img]http://www.afrikanistik-aegyptologie-online.de/archiv/2010/2723/dippArticle-14.jpg[/img]

I think the latin script with minor modifications is good. Whichever Alphabet is used doesn't really matter in my opinion as long as Somali study in their language.

Fulaman198: Dedirawo, LOL it's already happening though sadly because many Africans (especially those in the younger generation) think its cool to imitate foreign cultures instead of being proud of their own.

thus the need for this cultural "revolution".

macof: there's nothing wrong with cultural assimilation either by mass migration of invaders or colonization etc. my ancestors did this to produce the Yoruba identity of today

But you can't separate people who have been cultural painted as the same colour or merge people who have no cultural links and delude urself with "One people" chants

my point is Nigeria isn't one culture, a progressive nation should have one dominate culture not 3 or 6 or more

I have never intended for Nigerians to be forced to speak one language or pick among the three major ones and impose it upon everyone else. That's why I asked you, what percentage of the Nigerian population those three languages cover, because working with those three languages or two more on top of them would do the job. No need to attempt to do it for 250 tribes.

Finally, having different languages does not prevent people from uniting to build a nation. All they need is to realize that they have a future together and that they will go through pain and joy.

Fulaman198: Pullo bandam, at the rate we are going, that's exactly what is happening.

Bandiraawo, that would be the greatest disaster. I don't even want to think about it.

macof: Africa has AU and Ecowas but they not really doing anything, personally I think economy, military and currency should be shared all over Ecowas member states leaving other things like resource control, laws and governance etc. to it's nation...nations drawn on ethnic lines of course

This is what EU is even doing as it is

I mentioned this earlier. I agree with it. But only after building a strong ECOWAS, otherwise the region will go into chaos.

macof: Fulaman, my friend you seem not to have understood my arguments at all

Let's say the North has 100ethnic groups, what remains of their ethnicity?? You have said they have been Hausanized and a lot are left silent
This is the cultural assimilation I speak of

We in the South West were also culturally assimilated by the "Oduduwa" factor and Oyo imperialism.

Let me ask you, what percentage of the Nigerian population do you think Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo languages will cover?

macof: What do you mean by this? Is Asia a country?? Is Europe a country?

Switzerland history I don't know much of but check it's geography, it's boarded by all the countries with it's 3 languages...German, French and Italian
there is ancestral link between them, swiss are Germanic by ancestry but have culturally influenced/been influenced by their immediate neighbors.

well someone said that all of the groups mentioned in the post spoke one language, which is why I had to clarify this.
Let's not drag this to an endless and fruitless debate.
Here is my point. Africa has regional languages spoken by tens of millions of people from different ethnic groups. The renaissance that I am calling for should be centered around these languages. Now for those that say , well it's too much of a task. I pointed out that Europe despite its size has multiple languages and everyone instead of adopting the language of the more advanced group decided to develop their own. They would go learn somewhere else but once home, they spread their knowledge in their language which gave the opportunity to millions of others to absorb it at a rapid pace. The same is true for the Asians. The Japanese learned a great deal from the Germans, French and British but eventually, they wrote books in their own language. The Koreans would do the same. Why wouldn't we do the same? or should we just drop our languages and become all "Akata"?

macof: And what is wrong with wars? Civilizations are built on wars, those who can't handle it get exterminate or give up and become assimilated, every Great nation had to fight for it's place otherwise why have military?
Pls show us that the people of the Ghana and Mali empire had no cultural assimilation among themselves
I guess to you they were also merged together like canned beef
All this using of fancy names for people to call them ethnic groups instead of clans and tribes is really misleading
Finding a way to unite is not the same as merging like beef in a can under one federal government. We can be friendly neighbors, Infact your best friend should be your neighbouring countries

Only thing is my friends, the Europeans and Asians will sell us guns to kill each other while they suck up our resources. Africa does not need wars. Well let me phrase it this, unless it is to unite our people, we don't need a war.
Like I said, the EU has the ambition of becoming a multinational state, not even multiethnic. Why Africans would move in the opposite different when we are weaker compared to them?
In a multi ethnic state, nobody has said that Igbos, Yorubas, Hausas, Fulanis, Ijaws could not form cultural organizations. But as far as army, currency, foreign policy, only a large multiethnic state can protect our interests. That is reality my friend. No current African state let alone ethnic group can compete in the global arena. Believing otherwise is just foolishness. We need these regional organizations ( I want them to become true states) to protect us. Imagine Cameroon or even Nigeria negotiating a trade agreement with the EU, what a funny thing that would be.

macof: @OP lemme tell you one fact.
At independence it was decided for most African countries especially Nigeria which I know of to take English as it's official language and language of instruction throughout because we are multi-ethnic- no one language from the native ethnic groups could come out to take the role of "official"
If African nations were drawn on ethnic lines, not religious or former colonial boarders our culture would be preserved better, there would be better nationalism and patriotism, less bigotry in one nation, respect for the neighbours
We stand a lot to gain from totally reconstructing Africa, cleansing the continent of the pollution of the Europeans.
Let large ethnic groups form one nation, Akan be one Ghana, Yoruba be one Oduduwa, Igbo be one Biafra, Hausa(and the settled fulani) be one Arewa
We are bound to progress with better understanding, freedom and cultural independence

Can you imagine how many wars can break out as a result of this balkanization? How many small countries would be fighting for land that they claim is theirs?
West Africa has seen her best days during the Ghana and Mali empire. Unfortunately, due to a lack of transportation means those empires could not develop strong armies to establish order throughout the area they ruled to break any rebellion. But those empires were multi ethnic.
After the fall of the Songhai empire that was attempting to do the same as the two previous ones, we ended up with smaller states and that's when the slave trade truly flourished. West Africa became a land where any group of thugs could organize their slave trading company and sell their own for low quality goods that also undermine our small industries. That culture still persist to this day. Every now and then, you see a group of low life criminals take possession of guns and wreak havoc.
Secondly, we live in an age where even European nation states are finding ways to unite because they believe their nation states can no longer protect them against competition from China or North America. Why would we instead moving in the same direction, go in the opposite?
If the current states are to broken along ethnic boundaries, we would our children and grand children great good only if we make our entire region one federal republic. Each group could have their small state but within one large ECOWAS.

SirHouloo: Nice talk but how many of our Yoruba students can successfully read and write in Yoruba?
We find English easier and at times feel proud of not even understanding our own mother-tongue.

that is the problem my friend. How many Yoruba agricultural engineers can explain to local villagers what they have learned in western Universities?
How long can we last this way? Are we going to end up like African Americans and Caribbeans? We will be people without a culture and language. Then White folks will tell our kids that when they came to Africa, we couldn't even speak.

SkyRider1: Sure that's our only lifeline.

Think about this all great powers study in their language.

The Chinese, the Russians, the French, the swedes, the Germans, the Koreans, the Japanese,

They have domesticated science and technologies. Hence they apply these to their local challenges

Exactly my point.

ChiSun27: All these continents you mentioned all have a common language spoken and understood by her citizens.


Which common language do you have in Nigeria? Pidgin English


So my friend...the fight should first be: which of the languages spoken in Nigeria should Nigerians adopt as a common language? And until that is done...we will still remain at our average level.


But then the big question is: Will other languages willingly go down for the one that will be adopted?

One common language you said? Do Asians have one common language? Do the Europeans have one common language? Even within little Switzerland, there are three major languages.

Mars88: How did the union between Tangayinka and Zanzibar come up with theirs? Without a common language we could as well project our various regional languages, simple!

exactly, these regional languages are share by millions of people from different ethnic groups.

greatwaters: Nice write-up but you're getting some things mixed up

I agree with you partly on this.


Now you're beginning to sound really gnomic, hard to understand. You want the Nigerians to lose their superstitions which are very much part of their culture, yet you want them to retain their languages. Thats impossible. Its like telling the Arabs to stop wearing their veil and gowns but to keep their language, Lol. My point is, Nigeria has been influenced by the west greatly during development and there's no way their languages would not be affected.



Here, i agree with you. Our leaders have always been our bane. I dont quite believe that we cant catch up though.

While it is true that translating books into their languages aided these countries' rennaissance, it is notable to note how difficult achieving the same feat on the African scene. First of all, the Arabs, Asians and Europeans have one major language in their countries which almost everyone understands, so translation is easy. Imagine doing that in Nigeria for example, which language would you translate into? Even if manage to translate into the three major languages, there's still a sizable population that do not understand any of those three languages. So you see how hard it is.

Good idea, but that would take quadruple the effort it took the Arabs, Asians et al. This is because everyone has to first become literate in the said languages, which to me is far fetched considering that it is discouraged in most basic schools.


If we want to achieve anything, lets encourage our own, though teaching science in our languages seems far from possible. We should not bundle off our promising scholars 2 America or the U.K, where their brains will be tapped 4 d benefit of those countries.

Fighting superstition does not mean getting rid of languages. The Spanish, the French, the Germans and multiple other nationalities have rid themselves of most of it but they still retain their language. The communist in China fought it with their "cultural" revolution. And knowledge is the only way to fix it. People need to know how is electricity produced, they need to know what a eclipse is so that they would interpret it as the death of a ruler. This is what I mean by ending superstition through knowledge.

You don't have to start translating books in every single one of Nigerian languages . In the North , Hausa alone can do the trick. In Central Africa, Lingala would do the job, same thing for Swahili in eastern Africa. For the Western part of West Africa, Maninka and Pulaar/Fulfulde would work. Many of these languages are spoken by other Africans, specially the illiterate.

Our bright minds like those I listed in the post would do us great goods if they made medical, farming, mathematical, and why civics manuals in our languages for a start. Help those millions of our people have access to the knowledge they need.

To finish here is what Friedrich List in National System of Political Economy had to say about the effect of introducing Roman Law in Germany:

"The introduction of the Roman law weakened no nation so much as the German. The unspeakable confusion which it brought into the legal status and relations of private individuals, was not the worst of its bad effects. More mischievous was it by far, in that it created a caste of learned men and jurists differing from the people in spirit and language, which treated the people as a class unlearned in the law, as minors, which denied the authority of all sound human understanding, which everywhere set up secrecy in [66] the room of publicity, which, living in the most abject dependence and living upon arbitrary power, everywhere advocated it and defended its interests, everywhere gnawed at the roots of liberty. Thus we see even to the beginning of the eighteenth century in Germany, barbarism in literature and language, barbarism in legislation, State administration and administration of justice; barbarism in agriculture, decline of industry and of all trade upon a large scale, want of unity and of force in national cohesion; powerlessness and weakness on all hands in dealing with foreign nations."

bushdoc9919: All I can do here is quote Field Ruwe's article



The problem is....we prefer to share money rather than to use it. We would rather fight wars over how the oil money should be shared...instead of using that oil money to build things.

this reminds me, when Japan wanted to establish a cotton yarn industry in Japan, Eiichi Shibusawa a "patriot businessman" was put to the task. But at the time, Japan lacked technological and managerial skills to compete with imported products. So here is what he did. He contacted a Japanese student in the name of Takeo Yamanobe , who was majoring in economics and insurance in London. He asked him to "study" the textile industry for him, so that he can establish a local industry. He changed his major to study the theory of the textile industry. Realizing that theory won't cut it, he decided to work in a textile company where he learned technology, management and shipping.
After absorbing everything he needed, he returned back home and was made head engineer of the Osaka Spinning Factory which was a success.

Will the diaspora why can we do similar things? No just in the textile industry but in multiple others. Our markets are flooded with cheap Asian manufactures while we have a large unemployed youth and indigenous crafts. What we need is changing those into large industries, and we can call upon our diaspora for technical help if we need it.

More than a half century later after the independence movement and more than century after serious contact with European civilization, our beloved continent lags when it comes to technological progress. Superstitions still remain in force even among the African elite. Passion rather than reason is still the norm. Cultural alienation is on the rise. Most Africans living in cities cannot speak their native language without borrowing words from the English or French language.

I've always wondered why were the Arabs after the advent of Islam able to build so much in the 300 years that ensued. Or why was the European renaissance such a success that they rule the world to this day despite being far behind China at the time. Why did the Koreans that had the same level of economic development as Cote d'Ivoire in the 50s and beginning of 60s were able to surpass them. In short why other cultures are able to assimilate science and technology at such pace and why are we failing to do the same on our continent. Even if we are doing it, one has to agree that the pace is really slow and at this rate we will never catch up with the rest of world.

Despite the cultural differences of the Arabs, Europeans and Asians, there is one similarity to the renaissance they witnessed. All of these groups made progress while maintaining their language. The Arabs translated books from Greek to Arabic to spread knowledge as much as they can. It is in Baghdad that Muslims founded their school of translation, every Greek book they could lay their hands on was translated to their language.

The Europeans will do the same. They will build up from the knowledge left by the Arabs and translated thousands of books in Latin. Constantine of Carthage of the Toledo School of Translators translated multiple texts on medicine including the Canons of Medecine of Avicenna. He went ahead and founded a School of Medicine to spread the knowledge. Frederick II of Palermo had in his court intellectuals that translated the work of Arab astronomer Al-Farghini and Ptolemy's Almagest. Some of the books translated to Latin originally came from Greek intellectuals but was lost in Europe and they had to translated them back to Latin from Arab to have access to the knowledge. This is to name of few. For those interested in the influence of Islam of the European renaissance, a simple google research will answer your questions.
And more recently, the Japanese, Koreans translated European books in their native languages. This has contributed greatly to the amazing technological progress they have witnessed.

All of these groups did the same thing, absorb science and technology but retain their culture. They translated works from other languages to theirs not only to ease the learning on their people but also to enrich their culture and language. That in my opinion among others, is something we, as Africans, need to do.
Could you imagine how much we can fight ignorance if learning science in Hausa, Lingala, Swahili, Fulfulde is encouraged?

What is your opinion? Why do you think we still lag behind others in science and technology?

Fulaman198: Those are the Fulbe in the NW not reallyh Adamawa. I'm 100% Fulani No Hausa whatsoever.

majority of fulbe are located in the North east?

Fulaman198: It is religion mainly and also all the Emirs are of Fulani origin (though I don't think any of them speak Fulfulde). The Hausa people are also very kind people.

that's what I figured. You must intermarry a lot too for the term Hausa-Fulani to be popular.
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Fulaman198: LOL it would be nice and there is nothing wrong with PanAfricanism, I am a bit that way myself (ok I'm joking I'm completely that way). It seems that Fulani people are some of the biggest Pan Africans or maybe I'm just using you and myself as examples.

Considering that we are sprawled , we have an interest in being Pan Africanists.

it seems like unlike other fulanis in West Africa, you seem to get along with Hausa in Nigeria. Why is it so? The religion?

Fulaman198: You see a lot of Pulaar/Fulfulde writing in Senegal, Guinea and Mali that's what I really like about this countries. I think Nigeria is becoming far too Hausanized. It is definitely that we have to work on if we would like to retain our respective Fulani cultures 100%. In the Northeast, I'm glad that we have retained our Fulfulde quite well, but I can't think of any famous authors that write in complete Fulfulde on the top of my head in Nigeria.

I think maybe I'll write a book in Fulfulde.

sometimes , as I am an Panafricanist, I admire the progress of Hausa in Nigeria, I wish it was spoken by everyone , not just the Northerners.

Kudos to the brothers from Senegal, professor Abou Dembel Mbodji has announced the publication of a book on astronomy in Pulaar.This is how everything starts, just like how we did it with the Quran we should translate every science and tech book with great importance in our language. It is the best way to educate our people.

source: http://www.ndarinfo.com/NOUVELLE-PARUTION-le-professeur-Abou-Dembel-MBODJ-publie-un-ouvrage-sur-l-astronomie-en-pulaar_a10533.html

Fulaman198: 100% agree my brother.

If not, we can focus on building Futa Jallon and use our 45% to build a strong political base to protect our interests. After all, politics is a game of numbers, we call always support a "minority".

Fulaman198: Well we have the ability to make that change now. All presidents have been Mande. What have they really done to bring Guinea to the forefront of things? It's time that a Fulani person rules and sees if they can take the country farther than it has ever been.

only if people will let go of prejudice. Many people still vote to prevent someone from coming to power. They forget the consequences of making such choices. The worst thing is, despite everything, Fulanis still do better than other groups. But Guinea can go far beyond. It's a country that is unexploited, has fertile and an large opening to the sea.

Fulaman198: @OmarBah, I was going through the history of Guinean presidents and they have all been Mande. I really think that's unfair especially in a country that is 45% Fulani. I can see where you and Bororojo were coming from now.

it's either we get an ally from the Mande ethnic groups or we attempt to change the mentality of the average Guinean and thus affect his views on politics.

Futa ka men no weeli

the wedding parties, that's where you find them at.

Here is a more "traditional" one for your taste Fulaman

that look

from "Dimoh" TV

Omarbah: found this

Indeed she is from Futa Jallon. She is a Conakry girl though.

Fulaman198: Pullo debbo leydi Fouta?:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7112/7521587360_e463592a6f_z.jpg

Mali I would say due to the tattoo around her lips.