If there’s anything I am not proud of at this age, it is that I cannot speak my language,” Taiwo, a 30-year-old Lagos-based man said.
Sharing how he grew up in a home of academic parents who didn’t see the need for him to learn to speak his native language, he said, “My developmental years were not spent around learning Yoruba. If I had stayed where I could learn Yoruba, I would have learned it, but it didn’t happen to me and I wasn’t encouraged at all at home.
“My parents were academics. It didn’t seem like Yoruba was the language they wanted their children to be speaking so they didn’t bother about it. Even at home back then, there weren’t people who spoke Yoruba to me.
“The people who spoke Yoruba were those we assumed were uneducated, while the educated children spoke such good English that had everyone in awe.”
Now as an adult, he admits he is not happy to have missed the opportunity to learn to speak his native language. Although he understands it when someone speaks to him, he is not able to communicate in the same language. “Yoruba is a deeper language than English. There are many things I find that English cannot explain. That is one of the things I miss,” he states.
Taiwo is among the many urban dwellers who weren’t privileged to be taught in their native languages. Rather, he was brought up speaking and thinking in English, the language ascribed to be a sign of an educated person by some in the country.
According to a report by the Endangered Language Project, 172 Nigerian Languages are going extinct along with the population who speak them. This is as a 2006 report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation predicted that the Igbo language might become extinct in the next 50 years.
To this end, UNESCO raised the alarm that it was a huge cause of concern for the affected cultures and Nigeria as a country.
The organisation stressed, “Every language reflects a unique worldview with its value systems, philosophy, and particular cultural features. The extinction of a language results in the irrecoverable loss of unique cultural knowledge embodied in it for centuries.
“This includes historical, spiritual, and ecological knowledge that may be essential for the survival of not only its speakers but also countless others.”
In his work as a Yoruba Language instructor, Ogbeni Odunsanmi has met families, who declined to introduce or speak Yoruba to their children for various reasons. One such reason, he said, was the idea that speaking the English Language would give them a better chance internationally than their native language would.
Odunsanmi, who also is a curriculum contributor at Alamoja Yoruba, an online education site dedicated to preserving and promoting the Yoruba heritage said, “I have some students, who live on Lagos Island and rarely speak Yoruba. The only time they hear Yoruba is probably when their parents are speaking to one another, and worse is that the language is not spoken in their school.
He stated, “The parents speak Yoruba to their children but they don’t encourage their children to speak it back to them. One of the reasons they gave is that they believe that speaking Yoruba alongside English would probably impede their children’s learning curve to speak better English.
“To them, they believe that they don’t need to speak it once they understand it is better. They prefer to let go of their native language and speak more English because they believe that speaking good English will take them farther than the local language.”
It is not uncommon in the current Nigerian society, particularly for urban dwellers to prefer their children to speak English while discouraging and banishing every attempt at speaking their native languages.
Proficiency in the English language alone in Nigeria’s multiethnic and cultural society has become a sign of modernity, or at its best, a sign that one is well-educated.
While the knowledge of the English language, which is the country’s lingua franca, remains necessary for official communication, the decline in the knowledge and uptake of native languages by the younger generation puts the indigenous languages at risk of extinction and could also strip people of their identity.
According to a professor of African Culture, Aliyu Bunza, children are not indoctrinated into their native languages as a result of being brainwashed by colonialism.
Bunza of the Federal University, Gusau, revealed that the idea that the English language was better than native languages originated from colonialism, adding that colonialism brainwashed a person’s ideologies and outlook on life.
He explained, “Once you are colonised, your language, your perception, and your culture change. They say colonial masters brought a change that everybody must embrace, which is completely wrong. Once you are colonised and you are brainwashed, your language is termed as regressive.”
He also frowned on the idea that the ability to speak English meant that a person was educated, stating, “The people in urban areas feel that if they don’t speak English to their children, the idea is that they are not educated. The concept is that people believe that education is about speaking English, which is totally wrong. Gradually, our native languages are phased out in urban societies; however, they are still active in villages.”
He explained that native languages were more than just languages; they were the identity of a people, adding that it was in language that people could use to identify themselves.
It has been noted that language is also the essence of a people. It embodies history and connects individuals anywhere they find themselves across the globe.
A non-profit initiative that promotes knowledge of cultural heritage, freeknowledgeafrica.com, in a post revealed that in Nigeria, the widespread use of English, as well as the country’s rapid modernisation and urbanisation, could be contributing to the decline in some of the indigenous Nigerian languages.
“The failure of parents to teach and pass down their mother tongues to their children in a bid to make them more accepted and recognised in society by speaking fluent English is another very important factor resulting in the decline of our Nigerian languages,” the platform stated.
Adaugo, a mother of two children under five is one of such parents. She did not grow up speaking her native Igbo language and does not mind that her children will not be able to speak their native language, and doesn’t see it as an issue.
According to her, learning the Igbo language while her children have yet to adequately master the English language, which is their language of communication at home, will confuse them.
However, extensive research has found that a child can learn and speak up to three languages. According to experts, it has been proven that children can distinguish between two languages early on and can switch between them by the age of four.
Experts lament that the refusal of parents to take up the duty of teaching their children their native languages is detrimental to their culture and identity as a people. However, the duty does not lie only with the parents, according to Dr Seyi Kehinde.
Kehinde, who is an associate professor at the University of Lagos, revealed that another reason why parents prefer their children to speak English ahead of their native languages was for them to be perceived as “educated.”
“Because we use English as our official language for educational instruction, an average parent will always want the children to be educated and their mindset for education is that since English is the official language for instruction, then they see the best way to communicate as English,” he said.
Kehinde added that there was also the idea that the ability of a child to speak English would make them to be considered elitist and a thing of pride for the parents. “When you speak your language, they feel that you are of a low class, they look down on families speaking native languages. It is a mentality thing,” he stated.
Speaking on how the issue of integration of native language can be attained for the younger generation, the experts insist that it is not just the duty of the parents alone and that all attempts to change the trend must be deliberate.
According to them, there has to be a change in the academic curriculum to make native languages compulsory as well as awareness across the board.
Bunza declared that the gap in education being experienced was particularly a language problem, adding that to address this, “our curriculum should reflect our native languages.”
On his part, Kehinde, who is the Chairman of Culture and Ethics at UNILAG added, “It is not just about the parents. We cannot force them to change what has been sold to society over the years by the colonial masters. We need to change our way of presentation.”
Kehinde, however, revealed that the entertainment industry had unknowingly taken up the challenge of reintroducing the use of native languages in society.