Write an article for publication in a literary magazine on the need to promote the study of the indigenous languages of your country.

Answer Details

Our Mother Tongues Must Not Die

By Adaeze Okonkwo

Language is more than a tool for buying and selling in the market; it is the storehouse of a people's history, values and identity. Yet in our country today, the indigenous languages that our grandparents spoke with pride are steadily giving way to English. If nothing is done, we may soon raise a generation that cannot greet an elder, sing a folk song or understand a proverb in the tongue of its ancestors. For this reason, the study of our indigenous languages deserves urgent and deliberate promotion.

In the first place, our languages carry our culture. A proverb, a lullaby or a riddle loses its flavour the moment it is translated. When a child learns Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Efik or Tiv, that child inherits centuries of wisdom, moral instruction and communal memory. To abandon the language is to lock the door on this inheritance and to become strangers in our own land.

Secondly, mother-tongue education aids understanding. Research has repeatedly shown that pupils grasp concepts faster when they are first taught in the language they speak at home. A firm foundation in the indigenous language, far from being a hindrance, actually strengthens the learning of English and other subjects.

Furthermore, the promotion of indigenous languages preserves them from extinction. Linguists warn that a language dies somewhere in the world every few weeks. Once a language disappears, no dictionary can bring back the exact way its speakers saw the world. By studying and documenting our languages, we keep them alive for generations yet unborn.

How, then, can we promote their study? Schools should teach and examine indigenous languages seriously, not treat them as inferior subjects. Parents must speak the mother tongue at home instead of feeling ashamed of it. Writers, broadcasters and musicians should produce books, programmes and songs in these languages, while government should reward such efforts.

In conclusion, a nation that despises its own tongue despises itself. Let us therefore rise, in the classroom and in the home, to protect this priceless heritage. Our mother tongues must not die.