African indigenous languages and education
An indigenous language is a language that is native to the area where it is spoken. African languages are languages spoken in areas that they belong.
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There are more than 2,000 indigenous African languages. Africa is the only continent with the largest linguistic diversity.
However, 300 of the total number of African languages have speakers that are less than 10,000.
It has been noted that 37 of the 2,000 or more African languages are dying for lack of use or neglect.
Many indigenous languages of Africa are likely to suffer the same fate in the years ahead.
In any way, worldwide, some languages are falling into extinction for many reasons and African indigenous languages are no exceptions.
A number of languages die every month according to recent research. Reasons for this is not farfetched. Sociologists and anthropologists have projected that the evolving super-culture of the post-modern world would displace small and weak cultures along with their languages.
The super-culture is the “culture and beliefs and way of life and social organisation” as it obtains in the post-modern world – especially in the highly developed and advanced countries.
As the super-culture develops and spreads it tends to displace or replace small and weak cultures together with their languages.
The voyages of discovery, slavery, trade, colonisation, education, language and commerce have been drivers of super-culture in the past.
In post-modern times, the Information Revolution and the Information Superhighway and Information Communication Technology have become very powerful drivers of super-culture.
The propensity of super-culture to superimpose itself on other cultures, especially on small or weak cultures is enormous.
Professor Kenneth Boulding, a renowned economist, believes that all problems of the post-modern world are rooted in the conflict between the emerging super-culture and the traditional cultures.
According to him, countries that survive the onslaught of super-culture are those founded on strong traditional cultural base and strong moral and ethical systems.
Is the world on a brink of a world taken over completely by a super-culture? The prospect is frightening. However, the fact that an advanced country such as Japan has successfully fought off super-culture imposition gives hope to humanity.
The death of indigenous cultures will create a world that is monotonous, empty, without form, and without diversity.
Diversity, order and form make life in the mineral, plant, animal and the human kingdoms meaningful and worthwhile.
Much of the indigenous cultures of many developed and advanced countries have been wiped out.
People’s Republic of China is an example of countries where super-culture has replaced indigenous culture.
India is likely to suffer the same fate as it is being engulfed by the super-culture of advanced technology and development. There is no doubt that India has a rich and enduring culture that is being eroded by super-culture.
Japan is one of a few exceptions. That country has managed to drag its old culture along into the post-modern world of advanced sophistication.
There are Japanese with their indigenous dresses, sitting on carpets on the floor or sleeping on mats or blankets and not on beds. Today, the Japanese still pay homage to the spirit of their ancestors and the departed.
This article is about indigenous African languages and about how education and other drivers of super-culture are working adversely on African Indigenous cultures and their languages.
African languages have been divided into six geographical zones as follows: the Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, Khoe-San, Austronesian and the Indo-European.
The Afro-Asiatic type is spoken in the Middle East, East and North Africa, Horn of Africa and the Sahel. It is made up of 200 languages.
The Nilo-Saharan type is spoken in Sudan and Chad. It comprises 140 languages. The Niger-Congo type is native to West, Central, South East and Southern Africa. It has a total of 1,000 languages spoken in two-thirds of the African continent.
The Khoe-San type is spoken in Namibia and Botswana. It has 50 languages.
Spoken only in Madagascar is the Austronesian type and the Indo-European type is also spoken only in South Africa.
It is notable that all African languages are official languages of the African Union (AU). But only a few of them are official languages in African countries.
Swahili, one of the 10 most widely spoken African indigenous languages and official language of some African countries, is spoken by 90 per cent of Tanzanians; 87 per cent of Kenyans; 85 per cent of Ugandans; 55 per cent of people of Burundi; 48 per cent of the people of DR Congo and 28 per cent of Rwandans.
Swahili is also spoken in Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique and the Comoro Islands.
In all, 11 million Africans speak Swahili as their first language and 120 million speak it as their second language.
Ghana belongs to the Niger-Congo type of African indigenous languages. The major indigenous languages spoken in Ghana are: Asante Twi, Akwapim Twi, Fante, Nzema, Ga, Damgbe, Ewe and Dagbani.
These languages have been put into writing and have been made part of the curricular of educational institutions in Ghana.
The Ghana Government has over the years taken some measures to protect and preserve Ghanaian languages. But are these measures enough?
The spectacle of toddlers admitted to day-care centres and pre-primary school institutions and taught in English as the first language of instruction is disconcerting.
Parents of such children are pleased with the development and encourage it by speaking English to their wards at home.
The home is the last stop. It is the only place where children can pick up the traditional culture and its indigenous language.
Ghana’s indigenous languages may be lost to posterity if children are not given a start-up at home and at school.
An African country, Zambia, has set an example worth following. Last month, the Zambian Government made a law that enforces use of indigenous languages of Zambia as languages of instruction for the first four years of education in the primary school.
That means all schoolchildren must have four years of compulsory education in indigenous languages of Zambia.
According to the Zambia Minister of Education, the purpose is to preserve local languages and traditional cultures and foster better learning.
He said children learn faster and better in local languages.
Zambians believe that English language is a threat to their indigenous languages.
English is one of the dominant languages of the super-culture. More than 80 per cent of the world’s population speak English and use it for commerce and industry.
English has proved to be inadequate to sustain and preserve African traditional cultures and their languages. In practice, it rather works to supersede.
It is, therefore, necessary that the Zambian example must be replicated in Ghana.
A law must be passed without delay to make it compulsory for all educational institutions in Ghana to teach children in indigenous languages for the first three or four years.