₦airaland Forum

ezeagu said:

Africans always think that by bolting themselves at the hip they will solve all their problems, it's not.  Nigeria adopting Swahili is really like Germany adopting Russian like somebody has already said.

What would be even stranger would be Germany adopting mainland Chinese, as their language, which is equivalent to what we do as Africans when we adopt European languages.

It seems ''normal'' to us because we're so used to it. But observed from a detached point, it clearly isn't.

Don't forget colonialism has ended.

ROSSIKE:
I've read what he says. He seems to think that because ''Europe haven't done it'', we shouldn't.

Actually, Europe has already done it. It's called Latin. Much of Europe was "colonized" by Rome and even those who weren't colonized adopted Latin for written communication and records and much more. Then they all moved away from that and developed their own literatures and phrases and styles. Nobody speaks Latin anymore except for religious rites. In fact, at one point you mentioned Pythagoras's theorem and relativity theory being translated into Chinese. Well, as a minor correction, they had already discovered Pythagoras's theorem before being introduced to it by the west. As a counter to this I would point out that European scientists, even Newton, continued to publish in Latin for a long time until adopting the languages of their mother countries for scientific publication (English, French, German, etc.), but it never decreased or increased the quality of their work. Newton spoke English, but thought about physics and math in Latin, and expressed himself in Latin. His ability was never reduced by the fact that he had to read about Galileo or Kepler's work in Latin rather than in an English translation. And it was the same for Galileo and Kepler with regard to Italian and German. They read voluminous works in Latin and expressed their mathematical and physical ideas in Latin but then spoke their real languages when debating fellow countrymen and Latin when debating foreign scientists they were corresponding with. Now you want to swap Latin  with Swahili and German/Italian/English with our native languages but the counter to this is, did the quality of English, German, and Italian scientific research suddenly plummet and degenerate once the use of Latin was abandoned and they began to publish in the languages they naturally spoke? No, if anything it continued right on rising. The phantom of language change will not get Africans to adopt the push for scientific research that the Chinese have, rather it will take real interest in the science itself, and there are very real social changes that would bring that about, such as improvement in the general standard of living and quality of life and additional money to pour into research from profits (rather than being spent on development of infrastructure and other necessities) but I can't see how language would make one less or more competent or research inclined.  

But who doesn't know that ENGLISH is the ''unofficial'' lingua franca of Europe? There's hardly anywhere you'll go in Europe and not find English readily spoken. It's certainly the language of trade across the continent.

Incorrect. English is not the lingua franca in Europe although it is true that English has overtaken French for the purposes of the European Union and of business. English has overtaken French as the language of trade in Europe. Still, one cannot go to just anywhere in Europe and start speaking English under the impression that one will be understood. It is only so in certain countries, Western European countries especially, but not including Spain, Portugal, Poland, and a few others in Western Europe and excluding much of Eastern Europe. If a language of business is to be adopted, I see no reason why it should be Swahili and not the current French and English except that the latter two are European while Swahili is African. To me this does not serve a purpose if hundreds of words have to be invented immediately just to catch up to the pace of modern business and economics and if these words will mostly have to be stolen from French and English or be poor attempts at using Swahili to convey or describe concepts it cannot describe simply without having to define a multitude of other concepts that are also only expressed in European languages.

He makes other unwarranted assumptions such as that indigenous languages will be subsumed unfairly, and not allowed to showcase their peculiar strengths etc -  a charge for which there's no evidence. If anything, the development will herald a BOON in the elevation of major languages like Yoruba, Ashanti, Hausa etc.

Actually, that makes no sense. Consider the example of scientific concepts with regard to the growth of languages. If Swahili is currently more capable of expressing scientific concepts and eventually this expression of scientific concepts is highly developed to where, say, one could describe evolutionary theories, or theories of the formation of the universe, or thermodynamic concepts, in purely Swahili it would follow that simultaneously doing so in every major African language (Shona, Zulu, Somali, Amharic, Kongo, Ashanti, etc.) would be much slower paced for each language than doing so for the "Latin" of Africa, which would have contributions from all of Africa (once all the scientists from all regions buckled down and learned their Latin (Swahili)), unless the versions of the expressions of these scientific concepts in these regional languages would just be derived (stolen) from the new Swahili words for them, in which case, there would be little point as the regional language still would not have developed. If this cycle were to be repeated, eventually a mass of words stolen from Swahili would come to populate all of the words for important concepts and ideas and expressions in the regional languages (as Latin does for English, French, Spanish, etc.) to the point that the regional language could never recover and be its own language until it were readopted and developed independently as the English, French and Spanish did with their own languages.

And he says in a hundred years time every group would form their own version of the African lingua franca.

Again there's little evidence to support this. English is still spoken officially in its original form by most Africans, over a century after the British brought it, with no sign of people ''imposing their dialect on it to turn it into a different language altogether''.


So why does he assume that this will happen with an official African language?

Actually, many pidgin words spoken throughout some parts of non-Portuguese speaking Africa are bastardizations of proper Portuguese words introduced from a few centuries back. So over time, as the standard is lost, the natural linguistic tendency arises and overtakes and the words used are neither used in a grammatically identical manner as in the original language nor is the exact same word used. But with regards to English, the standard was never lost. In fact, we became and are becoming better at English than we previously were. However if English had merely become a lingua franca between our real languages (Edo, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Tiv, Ijaw, etc.) and we spoke and/or mostly wrote in our real languages always while only invoking English for some official documents and publications or business transactions now and again, the bastardizations which I predicted would certainly have occurred. In this modern information age though, this does seem less likely to occur even if English were relegated from everyday use to merely lingua franca status.




The one thing I will admit, is that all of black Africa speaking Kiswahili [i]could [/i]work to foster more African unity if done correctly.

Africa needs electricity, clean drinking water, schools, hospitals, roads, good governance and so much more before the idealism of a lingua franca.

Quote from: KnowAll on Today at 06:46:53 AM
Many other tribes in Nigeria can speak Yoruba fluently, Igbo's ,  Beni's & Hausa's are versetile inthis language I contribute to the influence of Lagos.

What are you talking about?

Becos u happen to be in d minority of Igbos stuck in d east does not mean majority of your brethren in Yoruba land does not speak yoruba, in fact it is commendable, u should be proud of your bi-lingual nature not disputing a well known fact or how else can u sell your products if u refuse to learn d local peoples language.

Even your reverred Ojukwu is a sound Yoruba speaker.

PhysicsQED said:

If a language of business is to be adopted, I see no reason why it should be Swahili and not the current French and English except that the latter two are European while Swahili is African.

That's a funny one. I'd say that, considering we're AFRICANS, I would think that Swahili being an AFRICAN language would be more than good enough reason to choose it over French, English, or Italian, or am I missing something here?

To me this does not serve a purpose if hundreds of words have to be invented immediately just to catch up to the pace of modern business and economics

It doesn't have to be rushed. This is not something that would happen over a year or two. This, if introduced, would likely start with the children's curricula,  this generation of adults will not be obliged or mandated to ditch English or French and speak Swahili. This is a generational transformation that will take several years to decades, starting with the children. It's a form of social engineering with the long-term outcome in sight.

and if these words will mostly have to be stolen from French and English or be poor attempts at using Swahili to convey or describe concepts it cannot describe simply without having to define a multitude of other concepts that are also only expressed in European languages.

The wild, negative assumptions you make here are too numerous to warrant a response.

He makes other unwarranted assumptions such as that indigenous languages will be subsumed unfairly, and not allowed to showcase their peculiar strengths etc -  a charge for which there's no evidence. If anything, the development will herald a BOON in the elevation of major languages like Yoruba, Ashanti, Hausa etc.

[b]Actually, that makes no sense. Consider the example of scientific concepts with regard to the growth of languages. If Swahili is currently more capable of expressing scientific concepts and eventually this expression of scientific concepts is highly developed to where, say, one could describe evolutionary theories, or theories of the formation of the universe, or thermodynamic concepts, in purely Swahili it would follow that simultaneously doing so in every major African language (Shona, Zulu, Somali, Amharic, Kongo, Ashanti, etc.) would be much slower paced for each language than doing so for the "Latin" of Africa, which would have contributions from all of Africa (once all the scientists from all regions buckled down and learned their Latin (Swahili)), unless the versions of the expressions of these scientific concepts in these regional languages would just be derived (stolen) from the new Swahili words for them, in which case, there would be little point as the regional language still would not have developed.

Wrong!! That a regional language adopts terminology from the dominant one does not necessarily imply degradation, or inertia. The regional language could well develop a specialisation in a particular area of endeavour that could see it's terminologies in that area elevated in the continent's intellectual discourse. The bottom line is autonomy. The intellectuals of each region are not precluded from developing concepts and principles in their own languages with translations made in the continental language if required.

If this cycle were to be repeated, eventually a mass of words stolen from Swahili would come to populate all of the words for important concepts and ideas and expressions in the regional languages (as Latin does for English, French, Spanish, etc.) to the point that the regional language could never recover and be its own language until it were readopted and developed independently as the English, French and Spanish did with their own languages.

Perhaps, but by then we would have enjoyed a thousand years of Continental Rennaissance!!!!!

The one thing I will admit, is that all of black Africa speaking Kiswahili could work to foster more African unity if done correctly.

Interesting - but that's exactly what we're saying as well!!! 

KnowAll:
Becos u happen to be in d minority of Igbos stuck in d east does not mean majority of your brethren in Yoruba land does not speak yoruba, in fact it is commendable, u should be proud of your bi-lingual nature not disputing a well known fact or how else can u sell your products if u refuse to learn d local peoples language.

Even your reverred Ojukwu is a sound Yoruba speaker.

The Igbo who speak Yoruba are in the minority and the majority of Igbo people live in eastern Nigeria. Maybe 20% of Igbo people live outside Igboland, so there is no "bi-lingual nature". Why would someone need to learn Yoruba to sell to Yoruba people, do they not speak English?

ROSSIKE:
ezeagu said:

What would be even stranger would be Germany adopting mainland Chinese, as their language, which is equivalent to what we do as Africans when we adopt European languages.

It seems ''normal'' to us because we're so used to it. But observed from a detached point, it clearly isn't.

Don't forget colonialism has ended.

We're talking about adopting languages, not languages that are already being spoken. If Germany had Chinese as official language for over 100 years then it would seem normal as well. Colonialism has ended so everyone must speak Swahili?

ezeagu said:

We're talking about adopting languages, not languages that are already being spoken. If Germany had Chinese as official language for over 100 years then it would seem normal as well.

But it wouldn't BE normal.

Colonialism has ended so everyone must speak Swahili?

Any African language would do, in my book.

For how long do you expect European languages to be the official languages in Africa?

Forever?

Think again.

I do not see any reason why 120 million Yoruba speakers should Learn Swahili a language spoken by less than 40 million.

Even Pakistani meat sellers in London have learnt many Yoruba or now Generic Nigerian words like when haggling price with them over their wares they would say, why are u doing like " ijebu" other words commonly used in markets around London include shaki-tripe, pormo- hide of an animal, oga- boss, so don't let people decieve u with dat Swahili nonesense. The most widly spoken language in Africa is a Hausa but becos they have not got literal giants like Soyinka & Mazuri it is understandable y they are relegated to the background.  That clearly makes Yoruba d language of choice since in numerical strenght it is second to Hausa.

ROSSIKE:
That's a funny one. I'd say that, considering we're AFRICANS, I would think that Swahili being an AFRICAN language would be more than good enough reason to choose it over French, English, or Italian, or am I missing something here?

You're not missing anything. Just pointing out that this seems motivated my politics, not practicality.

It doesn't have to be rushed. This is not something that would happen over a year or two. This, if introduced, would likely start with the children's curricula,  this generation of adults will not be obliged or mandated to ditch English or French and speak Swahili. This is a generational transformation that will take several years to decades, starting with the children. It's a form of social engineering with the long-term outcome in sight.

This is reasonable.

The wild, negative assumptions you make here are too numerous to be worthy of a response.

The assumptions were neither wild nor negative. Let's say we want to talk economics and I want to talk about the marginalist theory of value which may be relevant, were I an economist or professor of economics in a particular African country, to my assessment of why people are making the economic choices they are making at this or that time or which they made in a previous era. Having created and defined words for the concept of utility  (in the economic sense) in Swahili, one would then have to create and define words that expressed all of the many economic concepts related to utility ( marginal utility, cardinal utility or ordinal utility, utility function, etc.) were they necessary to explain my theories or predictions. But then I need to explain marginal, cardinal, ordinal, and function (in the mathematical sense) in Swahili. And it goes on and on from there until one gets to the very very basics of every combination of possible ideas until one gets to some concept which is so basic that a word would already exist. Which is why it would be likely that words and concepts would just be taken from European languages without being redefined in Swahili terms when confronted with the daunting process of repeating this definition and additional definition of words/ideas in the first definition and additional definition of ideas/words explaining the first additional definition and so on and so on for millions of words/ideas. Obviously one would start with the basics first and build up from there rather than the reverse as I used in my example,  but in doing so one starts from a limited vocabulary and struggles to reach the heights of the modern vocabulary of developed nations, and thus our purely Swahili speaking economics professor may know what marginal and function mean if these basics have already been defined, but not ordinal or utility until someone later defines them for him (and why would they necessarily do so?) in his language and even then he won't necessarily know ordinal utility as a concept and so may be behind his peers for a while. I am not saying it is impossible to catch up. Rather I am saying it would be such an enormous uphill climb that more practically minded and less politically resolute people than you or me would just settle for stealing concepts and their words straight from the colonizer's language, as Western Europeans did with Latin.

Wrong!! That a regional language adopts terminology from the dominant one does not necessarily imply degradation, or inertia. The regional language could well develop a specialisation in a particular area of endeavour that could see it's terminologies in that area elevated in the continent's intellectual discourse. The bottom line is autonomy. The intellectuals of each region are not precluded from developing concepts and principles in their own languages with translations made in the continental language if required.

Perhaps, but by then we would have enjoyed a thousand years of Continental Rennaissance!!!!!

What I mean is in a hypothetical future, how can Kikongo's (7 million speakers) intellectuals/academics/word-coiners/idea-makers keep up with the pace of the expansion and development of their language with Swahili (all of Africa) while also contributing to the ideas and words developed and defined in Swahili, without those new Kikongo words merely being taken from the Swahili words rather than being unique, original Kikongo expressions of concepts/ideas when it proves too daunting to keep pace with the rate of expansion (in all directions, not just one area) of the Continental Swahili? Will they, having taken time to master the 150 new Swahili words for concepts introduced in say, the last 5 or 6 years, turn around and do double the work and redefine those concepts in words appropriate to their own language or will they take the more natural route and just appropriate the new Swahili words into their regional vocabulary? Consider the hundreds, or is it thousands, of languages in Africa and ask yourself honestly how many will take the route involving double the work and requiring an official intellectual academy (for each language) like the French Academy (Académie française) of the French language over the natural route of just taking the new foreign word into their regional language (which requires no translation/equivalent word-coining academy). Add in the even worse factor that different regional languages will move at different rates proportional to the "academic strength" of the community of that particular language. The Igbos, Yorubas, Ashantis, etc,  will field an army of academicians (Soyinka already started a Yoruba Academy, so I hear) which will have no trouble promulgating native equivalents every year for new words in the continental Swahili, while less advanced groups (I'm not worried about Nigeria here, actually) might be left in the cold in their ability to field armies of linguists, poets, writers, scientists, philosophers, etc. to sit around and discuss and then construct their own versions of ideas they can already say and express in Swahili.

Look, English did not originate in Africa, yes. But that is no reason not to choose it as the lingua franca. Heck, tomatoes didn't originate in Africa (they are indigenous to South America), but they are one of my favorite things to eat.

It is pretty silly to reject a perfectly fine tool (the English language) for sentimental reasons, I think.

We've got bigger fish to fry.

DapoBear:
Look, English did not originate in Africa, yes. But that is no reason not to choose it as the lingua franca. Heck, tomatoes didn't originate in Africa (they are indigenous to South America), but they are one of my favorite things to eat.

It is pretty silly to reject a perfectly fine tool (the English language) for sentimental reasons, I think.

We've got bigger fish to fry.

True. But look at the case of Cameroon. The English speakers are marginalized there to an extent. Some French speaking African countries might laugh at the idea of going from a supposedly eloquent, beautiful sounding colonizer's language spoken by a supposedly liberal, unprejudiced country like France which many have strong, old, positive relationships with to a supposedly plain, inelegant colonizer's language (English) spoken by non-African and African countries they don't interact with much and who are virtually strangers to them. For them, what's the point? This is one argument I can see for the pro-Swahili proponents. Even then, I don't think it's a good enough one considering all the other problems with implementing Swahili over French or English.

^--- Honestly, these French speaking countries need to  recognize that the entire world is moving towards English as the language of business and that it might behoove them to reconsider their attitude towards it.

Not sure why the rest of us should be held back by their shortsightedness.

Pan-Africanist make me laugh sometimes. There are more urgent concerns for African like sit-tight dictators, bad infrastructure, education, disease, war in some places, etc. We should be looking for solutions to these various problems and not be concerned about speaking Eurpean languages. Europe is much smaller than Africa yet many languages are spoken in Europe.

Going into the future, the two main important languages will be English and Mandarin. English might be the most popular language in the world but Mandarin is spoken by more people. We should be introducing these languages into the curriculum to African kids because of the advantages they will give in the business environment. Arabic even makes more sense because of the growing influence of the middle-east.

Economic activity will drive an adopted language. Apart from the other obvious disadvantages, I think is silly to learn another African language just because of pan-africanism.If an individual wants to learn another African language, that is fine but introducing it because we don't want European languages is not on.

Katsumoto said:

Going into the future, the two main important languages will be English and Mandarin. English might be the most popular language in the world but Mandarin is spoken by more people. We should be introducing these languages into the curriculum to African kids because of the advantages they will give in the business environment. Arabic even makes more sense because of the growing influence of the middle-east.

I can't imagine a more brazen declaration of racial/continental inferiority and dependence than the above comments. If indeed you are an African, you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself in my opinion.

Hopefully the adoption of a continent-wide indigenous lingua franca will remove the last vestiges of this pathetic surrender.

Unlike our current wasted generation of whom you're an obvious part, our children are as yet, not so thoroughly damaged mentally as to imagine themselves inferior to other races, and so the cultural/linguistic revolution accompanying the African Renaissance, as mentioned earlier, will begin with THEM.

i am not quite sure about all africans adopting a language. it is virtually impossible. however, i would support all nigerians adopting a language. i brings a sense of unity and pride.

with that said, I DO NOT WANT THE LANGUAGE TO BE ENGLISH. it can be either hausa (because its is very wide-spread) or yoruba because it is very easy to learn and widespread.
as [b]knowal[/b]l said earlier, even the pakistanis and the arabs speak and understand yoruba (in UK). S yes i would support either hausa or yoruba. but we also have to preserve the indigenous culture of the people.
i want a zambian thing where we all have a common language that we communicate with but also preserve the indigenous one. those of you who have zambian friends would understand what i mean. remember, they have never had a civil war which demonstrates unity (they have over 73 ethnic groups)

ROSSIKE:
Katsumoto said:

I can't imagine a more brazen declaration of racial/continental inferiority and dependence than the above comments. If indeed you are an African, you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself in my opinion.

Hopefully the adoption of a continent-wide indigenous lingua franca will remove the last vestiges of this pathetic surrender.

Unlike our current wasted generation of whom you're an obvious part, our children are as yet, not so thoroughly damaged mentally as to imagine themselves inferior to other races, and so the cultural/linguistic revolution accompanying the African Renaissance, as mentioned earlier, will begin with THEM.

That is your opinion. I have my mother-tongue which I am very proud of. I will equally ensure that my future generations speak my mother-tongue. Why do I need to learn another African language just because I don't want an European language. If the rest of African is willing to accept MY mother tongue as Lingua Franca, then fine.

You are attempting to put the cart before the horse. When Africa is developed to a level where it isn't dependent on the rest of the world, then it can decide on a Lingua Franca (which will be an impossible task in my hinest opinion). You can't even get Nigeria to adopt one common language and you are talking about all of Africa. Without economic and political power, a common language for all Africans is just a bloody waste of time. Have you ever wondered why Europeans and Americans pronounce Japanese names very well but murder African names?

O lo wo nso ro, talika no ni owu ni idea (the rich people are talking, the poor man says he also has an idea).

Katsumoto:
That is your opinion. I have my mother-tongue which I am very proud of. I will equally ensure that my future generations speak my mother-tongue. Why do I need to learn another African language just because I don't want an European language. If the rest of African is willing to accept MY mother tongue as Lingua Franca, then fine.

You are attempting to put the cart before the horse. When Africa is developed to a level where it isn't dependent on the rest of the world, then it can decide on a Lingua Franca (which will be an impossible task in my hinest opinion). You can't even get Nigeria to adopt one common language and you are talking about all of Africa. Without economic and political power, a common language for all Africans is just a bloody waste of time. Have you ever wondered why Europeans and Americans pronounce Japanese names very well but murder African names?

O lo wo nso ro, talika no ni owu ni idea (the rich people are talking, the poor man says he also has an idea).

how about islam

This is just silly; You can't force language on people like that. It's like telling the Europeans to adopt English language, just c.razy!
A dominant language will become dominant with time.

Katsumoto said:

That is your opinion. I have my mother-tongue which I am very proud of. I will equally ensure that my future generations speak my mother-tongue. Why do I need to learn another African language just because I don't want an European language. If the rest of African is willing to accept MY mother tongue as Lingua Franca, then fine.

Selfishness personified. The less of your type we have the better.

You are attempting to put the cart before the horse. When Africa is developed to a level where it isn't dependent on the rest of the world, then it can decide on a Lingua Franca

No. YOU are putting the cart before the horse. The Chinese did not wait until the were ''developed to a level'' before making mainland Chinese the lingua franca of their 2 billion plus people. At the time they did this, they were among the poorest regions on earth!

Today, the unity wrought by that decision has led them to the lofty heights they occupy today, to the point that YOU are now advocating we all learn Mandarin!

But if the Chinese had had YOUR mentality, the inferior mentality of ''we can't do this until we are that'' they'd be like you, queuing up to decide which FOREIGN tongues to conduct their activities in.

If you shed that mentality, you would realise that a time will come when AFRICA, like China  today, would be the 'new rising economic power'. So NOW is the time to develop the continental  lingua franca which OTHERS will be queuing up to learn in order to partake of that future economy.

You can't even get Nigeria to adopt one common language and you are talking about all of Africa.

Don't talk garbage. Is English not the common language adopted by Nigeria? How long did it take the colonialists to get you all speaking English? Fact is nothing is impossible if we put our minds to it.

Without economic and political power, a common language for all Africans is just a bloody waste of time.

A common indigenous language is a MEANS to building economic and political power. See Chinese example.

O lo wo nso ro, talika no ni owu ni idea (the rich people are talking, the poor man says he also has an idea).

Don't try to infect us with your blatantly obvious sense of inferiority.

A ''poor man'' CAN indeed ''have an idea'' in this world. God created us all equal, and we are ALL aspects of the Creator. Don't they teach you that in your imported religion church?

ROSSIKE:
No. YOU are putting the cart before the horse. The Chinese did not wait until the were ''developed to a level'' before making mainland Chinese the lingua franca of their 2 billion plus people. At the time they did this, they were among the poorest regions on earth!

Today, the unity wrought by that decision has led them to the lofty heights they occuppy today, to the point that YOU are now advocating we all learn Mandarin!

But if the Chinese had had YOUR mentality, the inferior mentality of ''we can't do this until we are that'' they'd be like you, queuing up to decide which FOREIGN tongues to conduct their activities in.

If you shed your inferior mentality, you would realise that a time will come when AFRICA, like China today, would be the 'new rising economic power'. So NOW is the time to develop the continental lingua franca which OTHERS will be queuing up to learn in order to partake of that future economy.

You see, no matter how big the Chinese are, it doesn't change the fact that the (Han) Chinese are a single nation with a common descent/history/culture, whereas Africa is a continent with hundreds of cultures. The unification of the common Chinese language was actually not the unification of complete separate languages but of dialects which some have still survived today. One culture in Nigeria could have the population of South Korea, yet how many do you think speak Mandarin as lingua Franca. Africa has to deal with its identity issues first and sort out how they want to live with each other with all these culture.

ROSSIKE:
Katsumoto said:

Selfishness personified. The less of your type we have the better.

No. YOU are putting the cart before the horse. The Chinese did not wait until the were ''developed to a level'' before making mainland Chinese the lingua franca of their 2 billion plus people. At the time they did this, they were among the poorest regions on earth!

Today, the unity wrought by that decision has led them to the lofty heights they occupy today, to the point that YOU are now advocating we all learn Mandarin!

But if the Chinese had had YOUR mentality, the inferior mentality of ''we can't do this until we are that'' they'd be like you, queuing up to decide which FOREIGN tongues to conduct their activities in.

If you shed your inferior mentality, you would realise that a time will come when AFRICA, like China  today, would be the 'new rising economic power'. So NOW is the time to develop the continental  lingua franca which OTHERS will be queuing up to learn in order to partake of that future economy.

Don't talk garbage. Is English not the common language adopted by Nigeria? How long did it take the colonialists to get you all speaking English? Fact is nothing is impossible if we put our minds to it.


A common indigenous language is a MEANS to building economic and political power. See Chinese example.

Don't try to infect us with your blatantly obvious sense of inferiority.

A ''poor man'' CAN indeed ''have an idea'' in this world. God created us all equal, and we are ALL aspects of the Creator. Don't they teach you that in your imported religion church?

When you personalise a debate, your argument loses its potency.

ezeagu said:

You see, no matter how big the Chinese are, it doesn't change the fact that the (Han) Chinese are a single nation with a common descent/history/culture, whereas Africa is a continent with hundreds of cultures.

Africans ARE a single nation with a common ancestor/history/culture.

We have only forgotten this because of the effects of migration and foreign invasions which caused all sorts of problems for us over thousands of years. (For more on this I suggest you read The Destruction of African Civilization by the late Dr Chancellor Williams).

But it is very clear that the cultural basis for the adoption of an official African lingo is there.

The unification of the common Chinese language was actually not the unification of complete separate languages but of dialects which some have still survived today.

You'd be surprised at the linguistic congruences among African languages. Taken holistically they could well be described as dialects of a common language system, which isn't far from the truth.

Example: Yorubas greet 'Eka-abo'
Ghanaians greet: 'Akwa aba'

Igbos call water ''Miri''

Yorubas call water ''O-mi''

Ear

Yoruba - Eti,

Igbo - Nti

Thousands of other examples exist of these language cognates throughout the continent.

A lot of the 'differences' are in European introduced syntax and other slight culture-specific variation - but it's obvious that our languages spring from a common ancient language system.

ROSSIKE:
Africans ARE a single nation with a common ancestor/history/culture.

No they are not. If they are then the whole world is a single nation, let's adopt a world language.

ROSSIKE:
You'd be surprised at the linguistic congruences among African languages. Taken holistically they could well be described as dialects of a common language system, which isn't far from the truth.

Example: Yorubas greet 'Eka-abo'
Ghanaians greet: 'Akwa aba'

Igbos call water ''Miri''

Yorubas call water ''O-mi''

Hundreds of other examples exist of this sort of language congruence throughout the continent.

A lot of the 'differences' are in European introduced syntax and other slight culture-specific variation - but it's obvious that our languages spring from a common ancient language system.

All language come from one ancient language. A few words don't mean the languages are brothers, otherwise from Mandarin 'Shi' meaning stop I would say that Igbo is its relative because stop in Igbo is 'Kushi', same with the Japanese village called Asaba and the Japanese name Azuka and the French 'Moi' and Igbo 'Muwa'.

ezeagu, I am talking of far more profound and intimate congruences of languages within Africa, not the one or two examples you gave of words, some of which sound similar to African words but may have different meanings or connotations.

I refer you to this article: 'How Yoruba and Igbo became different languages' describing the work by Yoruba scholar, Bolaji Aremo:


Saturday Tribune
Thursday 16th July, 2009

How Yoruba and Igbo became different languages

Cover of the book review of Bolaji Aremo’s book, How Yoruba and Igbo Became Different Languages, by Adewale Oshodi.

No one who has read Bolaji Aremo’s new book, How Yoruba and Igbo Became Different Languages, would be left in any doubt that Igbo and Yoruba were at some time in the past the same language and that the Yoruba and the Igbo were members of one and the same ethnic group.

The revelations are simply staggering!

The main text of the book, some 200 pages, and published by SCRIBO Publications Ltd, Ibadan, is divided into six chapters. As would be expected, Chapter One is a general introduction that provides brief notes on Yoruba and Igbo and their native speakers. The chapter also discusses the main objective of the book: to report the findings from a study aimed at searching (through books and among fluent speakers) for examples of words that are similar in sound and meaning in both Yoruba and Igbo and could, therefore, give further support for the claim by linguists that the two languages descended from the same ancestral language.

The next three chapters list, often with very interesting and informative “clarificatory” notes, the hundreds of examples the author has found of Igbo/Yoruba cognates, i.e Igbo and Yoruba words that are similar in sound and meaning by reason of having been inherited by the two languages from a common Igbo/Yoruba parent language.

The list is divided into rough and ready subsections: Body Parts, etc; Common Medical Conditions, Medications, etc; Relations and Usual Members of the Community; and so on. It is intended that by considering the examples, the reader will be able to form a good impression of how the languages have diverged over time. And the items listed include: agba (or akpÍ, akpå)/agbÍn (= ‘chin’), awÍ /ewu (= ‘grey hair’), aga (or Ëga)/agan (= ‘barrenness, infertility, a barren woman’), Ígwå/oogun (= ‘medicine, poison, charm’), dimkpa/ igiripa (or giripa) (= person in prime of manhood, strong man, man of strength and courage’), Ëra (or Íra, Íha, Ísa)/ara (or ira (CY)) (= ‘the citizenry, the people, the masses, the public’), onye/ eniyan (or Íniyan(CY)(= ‘person, anyone, someone’), agå/ ¹kun (= ‘tiger, leopard’), enyin/ erin (= ‘elephant’), anwå /oorun (= ‘sun, sunlight’), ifufe (or ifufu)/af¹f¹ (or efuufu) (= ‘wind, breeze, air’), ogbodo/ogberi (or ogbere (CY)) (= ‘person not yet initiated into a masquerade or similar secret cult , a novice’), and akårËkÍ /iharihÍ (or ihaahÍ) (= ‘charred part of food which adheres to the pot or sauce pan’). Very many examples, and not a few from even the deeper recesses of traditional life!

Chapter Five discusses some observations that are more or less of general interest concerning the examples. Perhaps the most important of the observations (at least from the historical point of view) is the one relating to the finding that the Central Yoruba (CY) variants of the cognates (used in such Yoruba towns as Ile-Ife, Ilesa, Ado-Ekiti and Akure) are generally much closer in form (and sometimes in meaning as well) to the Igbo cognates than their standard Yoruba counterparts are. Could it then have been the case, the author wonders, that the aboriginal population of the Central Yoruba area had in prehistoric times migrated from Igboland? Or could it have been the case that it was the first settlers in Igboland (in the Northern Igbo area) that had migrated from the Central Yoruba area? The questions are left, and rightly too, to historians to try and ponder.

At the end of Chaper Five, attention is drawn to the similarities between the age-old cultures of the Yoruba and the Igbo that may be inferred from many of the examples.

Thus, for instance: “In their homes (ulÍ/ile (or ule (CY)), the back-garden or yard (mgbala/agbala), the mud bed or mud seat (ÍkpåkpÍ/ pepele ( or upepe (CY)) and the drainage hole (Ínå ntu/ojuto (CY)) are among the regular features. The common tools and implements include: agbada/agbada (= ‘flat frying pot’), agbe/agbe (= ‘gourd’), akpara/ap¹r¹ (= ‘basket’), anyËke/aake (= ‘axe’), mkpÍ/ipÍn (or åpÍn (CY)) (= ‘calabash or wooden ladle’), mpata/Ítita (CY) (= ‘stool’), ågba/igba (or ågba CY)) (= ‘calabash’), udu mmiri/odu omi (= ‘large water pot’). (p 196)

The final chapter, a very short one, summarises the work, and states the quite obvious conclusion that there is overwhelming evidence from the examples supporting the linguists’ claim that Igbo and Yoruba are sister languages, i.e languages that have descended from the same common ancestor. The chapter is rounded off with a suggestion that similar studies be carried out on the various other Nigerian languages which, according to the linguists, are members of the same family. And why that suggestion at this point in the history of Nigeria as a nation? In the author’s view: “…it should be good – reassuring – to be reminded in quite concrete terms that in spite of what many would regard as “the mistake of 1914”, speakers of our different, mutually unintelligible languages today were originally speaking one and the same language, and that for us, there has always been a sure basis for national unity which could be nurtured by justice and fairness everywhere in the land”. (p 203)

In short, Bolaji Aremo has written an important book, in his usually simple, readable style. Already an author of considerable repute, he has once again produced a work of outstanding scholarship, one that should prove of abiding interest to linguists, historians and, indeed, the general public.

^-- Of course. Yoruba and Igbo are in the same language group, so almost by definition they must have had a common origin. Probably the two ethnic groups also have common ancestry. Indeed, everyone in southern Nigeria probably has common ancestry.

ROSSIKE:
'How Yoruba and Igbo became different languages'

All languages split from each other just like all human cultures split from each other.

Needless argument, IMO.WE have far more pressing issues than this

Mai Suya said:

Needless argument, IMO.WE have far more pressing issues than this

I reckon this comment symbolizes the reason the African has long been shafted by the rest of the world.

While they plan long term, inter-generationally, we concentrate all our energies on the immediate, the day-to day issues which we consider to be ''the more pressing issues''.

The idea that you can address those ''more pressing issues'' while simultaneously planning assidously for the long term, completely escapes them.

See how colonialism started, and how it ended with us all now christians speaking English, French and Portuguese, living in European-devised nations on our own continent, and becoming the 'permanent' raw material bases for European industries, with some of us so thoroughly immersed in the dispensation that we cannot countenance even a minor change to it!

It didn't happen by accident, or in one day or one year, but over at least two centuries.

Do you think it was not planned?

Of course it was planned. Meticulously in fact.

It was planned by people who knew they would not see the result in their lifetime.

It was planned by Europeans at a time the majority of their people lived in squalor and disease.

We need to develop this sort of long-term, trans-generational strategic planning and thinking.

If we don't we will continue to be shafted.

Why does Africa, a continent that boasts more natural resources than any other, contain the poorest people?

The answer lies in the apparent lack of long-term strategic planning by the African ruling elite, in the face of rapacious foreign competition, evinced inter-alia by aggressive industrialism, subterfuge, economic and military dominance etc.

Our endlessly decried woes - official corruption, inefficiency and so on are just outward manifestations of that absence of a real agenda to get the continent back on its feet in every respect.

Addressing this deficiency is not normally a ''democracy'' thing. The Europeans did not VOTE to establish colonialism in Africa, or to extend their dominion to far-flung regions. Their ruling classes did.

Ours is called upon to show similar attributes, by adopting, NOT their language, mannerisms, and so on, but rather, their Confidence and Long-term Strategic Thinking, in order to rebuild our shattered, bastardized lands, and KEEP them rebuilt.

I am so glad for your comment the speaker above, because of people like you Africa will move forward.

ezeagu:
We're talking about adopting languages, not languages that are already being spoken. If Germany had Chinese as official language for over 100 years then it would seem normal as well. Colonialism has ended so everyone must speak Swahili?

. I wonder what you mean by this, English was adopted in the face of even bigger challenges, they came so few and met us in large numbers but chose to teach us their language and it worked and has further divided us. Who ever said you can't carry out infrastructure while people are learning a new language, guess what they Chinese too have started selling their language realizing the importance and effect it has on one's mentality. Negropean!