The United Nations set aside 21 February annually to re-awaken people’s consciousness, especially the African continent due to its multi-language diversity, to look inward and promote their mother-tongue to strengthen individual identity, culture, belief as well have the possibility to relate with their environment in a world that is increasingly becoming a global village.
The celebration, held last Tuesday, was championed by its affiliate agency, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). According to UNESCO, this year’s theme, Born to Learn was informed by the insight that only “one out of five children” is taught in his mother-tongue and the learning outcomes have shown that only one pupil out of the five masters the basics of reading, writing and Mathematics after the completion of primary education.
The international day celebration serves a timely warning to safeguard indigenous languages from extinction, as available data show that at least 40 percent of the world languages are endangered due to lack of speakers. To combat the incident, UNESCO has rolled out a 10-year action plan (2022-2032) to project attention to the imminent loss of many indigenous languages which affects global learning of school children from their early childhood, and recommended that multilingual education be built as a school based curriculum.
This approach no doubt would solve the perennial problems encountered during translation among different indigenous language users in their contact with different indigenous languages which subconsciously create the tendency of one language interfering with others in conversation, writing and translation. Only language learners are quick to observe this deficiency among indigenous language users.
It is not accidental that many adults missed the opportunity to acquire indigenous languages during their childhood, and the fault is neither personal, but a combined effects of globalisation, inordinate preference for language of the majority speakers and the influence of the political class. These are some of the cases that endanger indigenous languages of minority speakers who ought to raise their level of language use above the hook, line and sinker.
In Nigeria, translation is a common activity among the citizens because of the multiplicity of the environment and the need to promote shared understanding among one another is constantly required to attain a common goal beneficial to everyone in all communities and to maintain peaceful and secure communities across a state or nation. Hence, the importance of a people’s worldview is a learning process that is gradually acquired by the learners of multi-language education to understand the imperative of usage across communities. Here are some examples:
The concept of “endangered language” to the Englishman given his worldview sees a situation of a possible loss, death or language disappearance. What a Yoruba person sees from his worldview compresses the various synonyms together by just one word “death”, and this guides his usage. Going further, the Ogu speaker (fondly mispronounced as Egun), due to his worldview in the mastery of usage of the older generation, only sees the last part of the three synonyms, “disappear” and expresses this belief as heard from thoroughbred speakers to guide appropriate usage without any form of interference from other language(s) in contact.
Further popular belief in Yoruba land held about death reveals that, only the man or woman who is survived by a biological child/ren truly attained a parenthood (eni omo sin, lo bi ‘mo) Whereas, the belief of the Ogu speaking community has a different way of expressing the same meaning. This community, as seen in its culture, believes that a biological child/ren are more promising on the burial day of their deceased parents (thoyigbe, ‘vi noyon te).
Early exposure to linguistic and culture diversity and multilingual education are necessary to curb errors of translation between two or more languages in contact. The 2023 International Mother Language Day therefore called for a more determined efforts by different stakeholders to increase the knowledge of indigenous speakers in the use of either Awori, Ogu, Egba, Oyo, Ife, Anago, Ijebu, Ijesa, Ekiti, Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri, Egede, Ebira, Igala, Tiv, and a whole lot of others. In fact, the prospects of mother tongue are many and only the prospects can guarantee the survival of linguistic and culture diversity in the world.
The Lagos State Government has made frantic efforts to achieve balancing between indigenous languages and other languages of international prestige in the curriculum of its public schools to ensure that every student learn at least one indigenous language of his or her choice to forestall a situation where children are completely alien to their environment as they grow up. The state’s policy is committed to impacting multi-language education on students, and the effort has yielded more results with the creation of a multi-language centre to deepen the use of indigenous languages in the state. Additionally, two community newspapers’ version for translating the Alausa Alert (a monthly publication of the state government) to Iroyin Igberiko and Linlin Miton are steps to further the use of indigenous languages by indigenes of the state.
Parents, community groups, traditional rulers, Non-Governmental Organisations, religious organisations and governments should heed the alarm of UNESCO in preserving the linguistic diversity as an essential cultural element for solving the current global learning crisis in most schools’ curriculum. UNESCO’s position for governments to embrace multilingual education based on the mother tongue from the early years of schooling is affirmative: “we know it works; there is empirical evidence to prove it helps children to learn”. One more thing about language use is a scientific confirmation that a child at the age of four upward can easily combine more than two languages as long as he comes in contact with them. Parents are therefore advised to stop the stigma against the use of indigenous languages by their children.
Therefore, children with opportunity of multi-language education will be more exposed to understand the importance of cultural element that makes meaning contextual as a guide for translating the proper usage when interpreting an indigenous language by being at home from the standpoint of a particular culture. The likelihood of many indigenous languages losing a sizable number of lexicon, as observed in the use of a mother tongue, is visible to warrant unnecessary borrowing by users of minority languages to always make transfer from their closest neighbour. This also results in poor speech patterns among some members of minority language.
Hopo studies Linguistics and Communication
