In the concluding part of his serial, CHINAKA OKORO writes that Nigerians should understand the importance of our living heritage and the need to protect our dying languages to avoid their extinction.

 

Languages, with their intricate function as vehicle for identification, social combination, communication, education and advancement, are of vital significance for people in any speech community.

As a result of this, mother tongue makes it easier for children to pick up and learn other languages. It develops a child’s personal, social and cultural identity.

Using mother tongue helps children develop their critical thinking and literacy skills. Again, self-esteem is higher with children learning in their mother tongue.

Mother tongue is said to be relevant as it is a means of promoting linguistic and cultural diversity. This is so because languages are the main elements through which we safeguard and build up our heritage.

Therefore, celebrating the day will serve as a platform for empowering linguistic diversity, multilingual education and engender consciousness of one’s linguistic and cultural traditions.

Language as carrier of culture

Linguistics experts contend that language is a carrier or conveyer of culture and culture carries, particularly through literature and oratory, the whole body of values through which we perceive  and identify ourselves. This indicates that if we don’t identify ourselves with our mother tongue, we are bereft of any form of linguistic and cultural identity.

In her view, Hanna F. Pitkin believes that “language is the carrier of the human culture, by which mankind continually produces and contemplates itself, a reflection of our species-being. Language, one might say, is the medium of mind, the element in which our minds dwell as our bodies dwell on earth.

“In mastering language, we take on a culture; our native language becomes a part of ourselves, of the very structure of the self. Thus language has dual aspects: it is our means for self-expression, for articulating our unique individuality; yet at the same time it is what we have in common with other members of our community, what makes us like them and binds us to them.

“As a consequence, language lies at the heart of the problem of membership – in a group, in a culture, in a society, in a polity – central to almost every theoretical issue in social and political study.”

Why mother tongue is essential

We are in a society in which the medium of teaching is the English language; thereby moving away from our mother tongue. The first language that a baby acquires right from his or her birth is the mother tongue and it plays crucial role in the life of children.

One of the roles it plays in the life of a child is intellectual development.

Studies have shown that cognitive and intellectual developments are faster in those who are fluent in the use of their mother tongue. It has also been noted that if a student is educated in his/her mother tongue, the rate of his or her educational success is higher than someone who is taught in a different medium other than their mother tongue.

Another benefit in the use of mother tongue is in the area of better connection with one’s culture.

Languages are the most important way of keeping our culture alive. Often the direct translation of one language to another might not carry the same essence as it is in the source language. Thus, the best way to know about a culture is to know the language. Mother tongue helps us stay connected to our culture and our roots.

Mother tongue helps in second language learning. If one has a firm grasp of one’s mother tongue, it is easier for one to master a new language. When a child reads out in his mother tongue since childhood, he would have stronger literacy skills in other languages.

Knowing one’s mother tongue well is a matter of pride. It boosts one’s confidence and creates awareness in the individual’s mind while also helping one to connect with one’s cultural identity in a better manner.

Mother tongue has positive influence in defining the personality of an individual. However, the medium of education which is usually English also encourages parents to speak to their children in their second language. Thus, this leads to confusion in the minds of the children and hence, they face difficulties in mastering both first and second languages.

Mother tongue also helps in providing a definite shape to our emotions and thoughts. Learning in one’s mother tongue is crucial in enhancing other skills such as critical thinking, skills to learn a second language and literacy skills. Thus, we can say that the mother tongue can be used as an effective tool of learning.

Read Also: ‘Make education accessible to all’

When a language dies

When can we say a language is “dead?”  Experts believe that any language that has no native speaker left is dead. Languages can die gradually.

“The death of a language can start in the home. Probably the most common cause of language death is “language shift”, which entails a community that previously spoke only one language starts to speak another one.

The community first becomes bilingual, not discarding their native tongue, but soon they start to use the new language more and more, until their native language is no longer used.

“Language shift can happen naturally. Sometimes the community decides that they would be better off if they learned a more socially acceptable or popular language, as its members would then have access to social and economic opportunities otherwise unknown to them. Whatever the reason is, language shift leads to language death, but at least the death is a gradual one,” linguists maintain.

Other reasons for any languages to die or go into extinction is when children are not exposed to their mother tongues at the crucial ages of between 0-5 years when the process of acquisition begins, preference for other languages other than one’s mother tongue in day-to-day interaction and multi-ethnic and multi-lingual situation that forces people to adopt a foreign language such as English, in Nigeria’s case, to bridge the barrier of intelligibility, among others.

According to records, a language disappears every two weeks, thereby taking with it a whole cultural and scholarly legacy.

 

Keeping languages alive

A language can be prevented from dying or going into extinction by revitalising or recovering a dead one. The beauty of either of the processes is that with the recovering or revitalisation of a language comes the recovering and revitalisation of a culture and heritage. It is necessary to take action that would stop or at least slow the deaths of many endangered languages.

 

Any workable education policy?

Concerned Nigerians wonder how firm the foundation in one’s language of origin could be in a situation where the system of education in practice, especially in the primary and secondary stages is based on a medium that is alien to the people.

This calls for a review of the medium through which our children receive education. The Federal Government realised this problem when it introduced the national policy on education in 1977 which encourages the development of our national languages.

Its goal was giving children the opportunity to be educated through the medium of their mother tongues during the early years of primary education.

Sadly, what is unsure is whether the policy still works. Are the children receiving education in their mother tongues as instructed by the policy? If not, what led to the failure of the policy?

Experts have argued that it will be taxing to implement the policy in many language areas due to lack of suitable teaching materials in the languages and lack of mother tongue teachers.

Another factor which rendered the policy seemingly unworkable, they say, is government’s lethargic approach to the implementation of the policy.

 

Expectation from government

As UNESCO’s language initiatives also fit in with the organisation’s move to protect the intangible heritage of humanity, it is expected that the Federal Government should ensure that these cultural treasures are protected as she protects tangible cultural and natural sites and monuments.

Let us be reminded of the need for Nigerians to understand the importance of our living heritage and the need to protect our dying languages to avoid their extinction.