BY: Morolayo Fadairo
Languages is generally viewed as a set of words used in a speech or spoken and understood in a community as a form of communication.
A language is more than just a means of communication. It is a repository of a community’s collective history and heritage and also provides an identity and a focus that binds a community together.
Mother Language on the other hand is the first language learnt by any person from childhood, usually from parents which plays crucial role in wide array of reasons, also known as ‘Native Language ‘.
The best way to thoroughly know about a culture is to know the language. According to Cambridge English Dictionary, Mother Tongue is the first language, mother language, or indigenous language someone learn during baby stage rather than language learned in school.
International Mother Language Day is a worldwide observance day celebrated yearly on 21st February with the main purpose of promoting the awareness of language and cultural diversity. This also helps to encourage people to sustain the knowledge of their mother language while learning and using more than one language.
It is a day set aside to appreciate and encourage people to be more knowledgeable about their mother language and provide them with more awareness to love their language and culture towards sustaining their nationality.
The idea of celebrating International Mother Language Day was the initiative of Bangladesh approved and announced at the 1999 United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General Conference and has been observed throughout the world since year 2000. UNESCO has been celebrating International Mother Language Day for nearly twenty years, aimed at preserving linguistic diversity and promoting mother language based multilingual education. It is a broader initiative to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by the people all over the world.
Research has it that at least 43 percent of the estimated 6000 languages spoken in the world are endangered, only hundred languages have genuinely been given a place in education system. Experts say the use of mother tongue must be encouraged as much as possible. The usage in the society will not only make learning more easier but also make learner comfortable with their own cultural identity.
Research indicates that having strong mother tongue as foundation leads to a much better understanding of the curriculum as well as more positive attitude towards school. So its vital that children maintain their first language when they begin schooling in a different language.
One of the challenges confronting African development is the lost of their mother languages which can best be imagined than expressed. Historians said colonialism had not only stolen cultural virtues from Africa Continent but also destroyed their native language.
The continent cultural values and national identity were lost due to European activities. No wonder Africans find it so difficult to forge ahead in the area of science and technology due lost of their genuine mother language in the contemporary world, where the Chinese, Indians, Japanese , English, French among others maintain their mother languages as a unified nation forging ahead in all area of socio-economic development, leaving Africans with national confusion due to amalgamation of diverse languages of different ethnic nationalities.
As a matter of fact, Intellectual Development is one of the major important gains of Mother Language. Studies have shown that cognitive development as well as intellectual advancement is comparatively faster in children who are fluent in their Mother Language. It has also been noted that if a student is educated in mother language, the rate at which such student will improve academically will be more than those who are being taught in a foreign medium.
Being conversant with mother language is a great way to stay connected to one’s cultural root, forge stronger ties with older folks in the family, thus the best way to thoroughly know about a culture is to know the language.
The most pathetic of African challenge was that the native language of every tribe and nationality was discarded as vernacular while colonial and foreign languages were accepted as official African language as Lingua Franca.
Africans are the most hinted of all the erroneous colonial activities during the scramble and partition of Africa in 1884. The Africans were short-charged with foreign identity which has adversely affected their socio-economic development in no small measure. Experts say over 50 percent of African education is concentrated only on how to speak and write foreign language in their very homeland.
The very language which left them half-baked educated without useful skill to address the immediate challenges affecting their communities. Worst still, the Africans are solely depending on the developed world for wherewithal.
The best step government at all levels can take at revolving the challenge of lost of mother language is to enforce the learning and speaking of native language in all the schools so as to sustain or redeem the lost culture identity of the people towards ensuring their socio-economic wellbeing.
Nelson Mandela once said, “if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head, if you talk to him in his language (mother language) that goes to his heart”. A Social Expert also said “Mother Tongue face a grave danger if they are not passed on and that if we don’t speak our language (mother tongue), it will perish”.
If we need to save our culture, we need to promote our mother tongue which is the nationality of the people. Let all African families irrespective of their level of education determine to stem the continuous effects of colonialism turning the mother languages to vernacular and consciously promote their cherished cultural heritage.
Everyone in Africa has a role to play in sustaining the educational values inherent in mother language by creating public awareness and encouraging the use of traditional artefacts. Particularly to advocate for the children on the socio-economic importance of speaking the mother language at home.
FADAIRO, Is of Ogun Ministry of Information & Strategy, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, Ogun State. 08065039373
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