Our local languages to the rescue?
Why are parents so bent on speaking the English language to their children right from infancy these days, to the extent of inflicting ignorance on them at a later stage?
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Unless teachers insist on parents communicating at home in the English language, we are really risking a regrettable phenomenon in our country, going into the future. A key component of our culture is being compromised and in no other place than the home, the base of cultural learning.
One thing I have always admired of some cultures, particularly the Asians, is that no matter which environment they find themselves settling in, they ensure that they speak their local language at home and their children grow up knowing and being able to communicate in their mother tongue in addition to the spoken language of their new settlement.
What do we see here in our country? It has almost become a fashion for Ghanaian parents to speak English with their children. It is generally believed that the child who cannot speak English fluently is daft. And so last week, during my morning walk in my area, where there are six basic schools, including a Montessori, I happened to walk closely behind this mother who was seeing off, to school, her children of not more than five and seven years old.
As I listened, almost to the point of eavesdropping, the mother spoke nothing but English to these children. As I watched them, the only time she spoke Twi was when she was scolding the younger one for not hurrying up. At the gate of another school on my route, another mother was sorting out her children’s snacks in her car. Again, she was speaking to them in English.
When I commented on this to a friend, she drew my attention to the case of a taxi driver who picks up her friend’s grandchildren and who speaks very little English. He found it difficult communicating with the children each time he picked them up.
It seems to me that to the fourth and fifth generation Ghanaians, our local languages would soon become outmoded.
When we were growing up, our grandparents who were part of our immediate circle of family ensured that we spoke and understood our dialects; they taught us proverbs, told us some folklore and sang folk songs to us. All these enriched our knowledge and understanding of parts of our culture.
The irony is that more parents today are adopting local names for their children, with some even coining their own local names. We find common adoption of titles such as Baffour, Opanin, Owura, Nana, Nii, Eno, Awo, Papa, Ohemaa, all going as first names. Spiritual influence has led some to adopt such words as Nhyira, Anidaso, Nyameye, and Ayeyi as first names for their children. All well and good, and especially for those of us who never had the opportunity to use our beautiful local names, the move is admirable.
So yes, being fluent in the English language is good. I must say it is excellent because then you are sure the child has some basic understanding of the lingua franca to see him or her through school. It is also good because in their world of over-reliance on technology, even at an early age, having a basic command of the English language would always carry some advantages.
Nonetheless, when we go overboard and refuse even at home to communicate with our children in our local languages, it is as if to say that those languages are inferior. One thing we are losing sight of is that by denying our children the opportunity to know, understand and speak our language and express themselves in it, we are neglecting an aspect of our culture, since language defines culture.
How can Nana and Nii not understand the Akan or Ga language? Would Nhyira and Ayeyi be able to explain the meaning of their names and the circumstances under which they were given those names? I do wonder what will happen to those who come from royal families and who may be lined up for ascending their respective royal thrones?
In the culture that we seem to be breeding today, even grandparents and great-grandparents are being forced to toe the line. Surprisingly, at family gatherings, these grandparents who are repositories of our culture speak to their grandchildren in English.
The neglect of our local languages and therefore some aspects of our culture is manifest in the way some of our news anchors, hosts, hostesses and presenters of radio and television programmes pronounce some local names, including names of some of our towns and villages. It gets embarrassing sometimes.
We certainly are at a point where we need to pause and look at our approach to local languages. Is the time coming when those who ascend traditional thrones would need interpreters in order to communicate with their people?
We are on a dangerous slope and steps must be taken to arrest it. Let our children begin to communicate in our local languages, especially at home.