CAN YOU SPEAK YOUR MOTHER'S TONGUE

 CAN YOU SPEAK YOUR MOTHER'S TONGUE

I'm filled with utmost concern when I see Ndigbo children who cannot speak their native, indigenous language and do nothing about it completely. They do not care one bit about it, like it is not an issue at all.

Met a very handsome lad as I navigated the easiest route to my destination earlier today. His "ngbati" "ngbati" was strong enough but couldn't speak a word from his indigenous language. This was verified.

I spoke to him through my mother tongue intentionally after peering into the notepad visibly written on it was "Nonso Okwudiba".

Nonso's fluency in his Lingua franca is top notch. Yet he cannot mouth a word in Igbo language in response to me. It is not something to be happy about. It is something to take seriously. We are losing all the best things of ourselves.

I speak two Nigerian languages (Igbo and Yoruba) fluently which is because of the influence of my immediate environment, The Igbo language have different dialects. My stay at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka availed me a golden opportunity to add another language peculiarity to my bag. Started speaking the "Nsukka" brand of Igbo in my first year second semester.

I think we all including myself must embrace other ways of doing things, Drop the supremacist conspiracies. We must learn to be flexible. Ask questions and don't be afraid to speak it in errors. That's how to improve. I worry about improving who I am everyday in all aspects.

It has been said by the people of the "white" colour. The Anglo Saxons that in the next 30-50years our cultural heritage and relevance would have been broken to fragments, If not completely lost altogether. What are we doing to protect our vast and unique culture, norms and traditions? Have the Church sprung up to kill our "Omenana"-- When Jesus came to the world, the scriptures quoted very vividly that he did not come to abolish the laws and the traditions but to fulfill them.

Parents now think it is not trendy to communicate in their local languages and dialects to their wards. Everybody is "knacking" grammar and sounding hip, tech and mad like Mr. Patrick.

We have forgotten that most times that the importance of language use and communication is being able to make sense and being understood. Ambiguous words thrown out every now and then to obfuscate negates this primary function. High sound resonating words. The isms flowing longer than the river Nile.

The rich cultural wears be fast "genuflecting" to the plethora of corporate wears in all shapes and sizes. Our minds have been totally reconfigured to see what is ours as cloned in moribundity. Savage out, unclean and barbarous. We are our own problem, the white man sowed the seed of discordance, acrimony, selfishness but we watered it and allowed it to grow and transmogrify into well blown hatred for anything ours.

What can be done about our dying fundamental ethos and cultural splendour? How can we savage our dying language and being it back to trends?

Why can't we make Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa mandatory subjects in Secondary Schools such that on the average every child is a complete Nigerian by the virtue of language identification.