Living With A Dying Mother Tongue - Nairaland General

Living With A Dying Mother Tongue - Nairaland General - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum › Nairaland General › Living With A Dying Mother Tongue (932 Views)

Living With A Dying Mother Tongue by DonCarlos1(op): 4:33pm On Jul 27, 2012

I speak two major Nigerian languages fluently but I still regret not adding the third one to my repertoire. I had a friend who fluently speaks five Nigerian languages, Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba, Efik and Igala. I respect the guy for this but that is not the essence of this piece.
I visited a family recently and in the course of our discussion, I realised their 10 year old son does not understand our native dialect and kept asking me to translate for him, the mum laughed and proudly announced the boy does not understand the language, he understands and speaks only English. As if that was not enough big question on parentage, she announced that her 15 or 16 years old daughter can understand the language but cannot speak, no remorse. Now this family has never stepped out of the shores of this country but the young lady speaks the so-called English language with American accent. Out of curiosity I asked her native name and what came out from her has a totally different meaning from what the name was supposed to be, because of bad pronunciation of her own name.
I have seen Germans, Italians, Indians, French, Arabs who have lived in Nigeria for decades and they never changed the way they speak, they don’t pretend to know English more than the English, they have no apologies for speaking heavily accented English. I have an Italian friend who has lived and worked in Nigeria for over 8 years and whenever we get talking, his hands does 40% of the talk and his mother-tongue does 20% because he uses this to complete sentences he started in halting, heavily accented English, who care, bottom line, he communicates. In this regard I doff my filanga for my Hausa brethren; they maintain superiority of the mother-tongue.
Question is, why are we deliberately killing our languages? Ever wonder the rate at which we, especially our ladies flaunt the American accent, is there a prize attached to it? What message are we passing to these oyinbos whom we try to imitate? Do we earn their respect by alluding to their superiority? Are we that inferior that we have lost our self-worth and willingly succumbed to cultural slavery? Why do parents who, at their town meetings, spice their mother-tongue with native proverbs now turn around to encourage their children to dump the only thing that gave them their identity? My Naija people, sey na like this we go dey stay? Are we not living a lie?

3 Likes

Re: Living With A Dying Mother Tongue by teresafaith: 9:59pm On Apr 10, 2020*

DonCarlos1:
I speak two major Nigerian languages fluently but I still regret not adding the third one to my repertoire. I had a friend who fluently speaks five Nigerian languages, Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba, Efik and Igala. I respect the guy for this but that is not the essence of this piece.
I visited a family recently and in the course of our discussion, I realised their 10 year old son does not understand our native dialect and kept asking me to translate for him, the mum laughed and proudly announced the boy does not understand the language, he understands and speaks only English. As if that was not enough big question on parentage, she announced that her 15 or 16 years old daughter can understand the language but cannot speak, no remorse. Now this family has never stepped out of the shores of this country but the young lady speaks the so-called English language with American accent. Out of curiosity I asked her native name and what came out from her has a totally different meaning from what the name was supposed to be, because of bad pronunciation of her own name.
I have seen Germans, Italians, Indians, French, Arabs who have lived in Nigeria for decades and they never changed the way they speak, they don’t pretend to know English more than the English, they have no apologies for speaking heavily accented English. I have an Italian friend who has lived and worked in Nigeria for over 8 years and whenever we get talking, his hands does 40% of the talk and his mother-tongue does 20% because he uses this to complete sentences he started in halting, heavily accented English, who care, bottom line, he communicates. In this regard I doff my filanga for my Hausa brethren; they maintain superiority of the mother-tongue.
Question is, why are we deliberately killing our languages? Ever wonder the rate at which we, especially our ladies flaunt the American accent, is there a prize attached to it? What message are we passing to these oyinbos whom we try to imitate? Do we earn their respect by alluding to their superiority? Are we that inferior that we have lost our self-worth and willingly succumbed to cultural slavery? Why do parents who, at their town meetings, spice their mother-tongue with native proverbs now turn around to encourage their children to dump the only thing that gave them their identity? My Naija people, sey na like this we go dey stay? Are we not living a lie?

Re: Living With A Dying Mother Tongue by PHijo(m): 8:39am On Apr 11, 2020

It pisses me off when you speak your language and people respond in English or broken!

People presume speaking English proves you are educated. Sadly, ignorance is endangering local languages and dialects.

1 Reply

Mother Tongue-Why Is The Letter "R" And "L" A Problem For Anambra Guys? • How Do You Call “christmas“ In Your Native Tongue? • Decline of Mother Tongue; Causes and Consequences • 2 • 3 • 4

Mtn Annouces Winner Of The Aeroplane In The Mtn Ultimate Wonder Promo. • Sheraton Hotel Ikeja Roof Collapse • Company Name-origin/meaning