When the world celebrated the day of the Mother Tongue

Contacts with the outside world, colonialism and alcohol have conspired to wipe out that tribe and today, many more languages are facing the threat of extinction as less and less people speak them even in Nigeria. The importance of languages, not only as a means of communication but a vehicle of conveying cultures, customs and […]

Contacts with the outside world, colonialism and alcohol have conspired to wipe out that tribe and today, many more languages are facing the threat of extinction as less and less people speak them even in Nigeria.

The importance of languages, not only as a means of communication but a vehicle of conveying cultures, customs and traditions from one generation to another cannot be overstated. It is in recognition of this, that the United Nations Educational, scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO set a day aside to commemorate the International Day of the Mother Language.

The day was marked February 21 all over the world and Nigeria was not left out. UNESCO provided the platform for all those concerned about languages and their preservations to air their views on the threats that are putting many languages on the endangered list.

“Mother languages are special in providing the material with which the world is first voiced, the lens through which it is first understood. International mother Language Day is a moment to recognise their importance and to mobilise for multilingualism and linguistic diversity,” Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO said in a message read by Dr. Joseph Ngu, the agency’s country representatives in Nigeria.

Experts and enthusiasts responded, some of them citing alignment with stronger languages, cross-cultural marriages and in some cases, poverty as constituting major threats to the mother language.

The Linguistic Association of Nigeria (LAN) presented a report on “The status of the Implementation of the Mother Tongue Policy on Education of Nigeria” in which it notes that a large number of Nigerian children, 25 per cent of those surveyed, do not have mother language competence. What this portends is that when these children grow up and have their own children, there might hardly be traces of their mother languages in their own children hence the fear that a lot more languages may become extinct in the next 60 to 70 years.

Professor Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche of the University of Lagos, who presented the LAN report at the event, also joined several analysts in blaming this trend on the absence of a National Language Policy.

In Nigeria today, English is a lingua franca. By implication, pupils, from kindergarten are taught in English and many families have deliberately opted to adopt English as a standard medium of communication among family members. The belief is that children raised in such families will learn to communicate fluently in English.

Many such parents will however be surprised to learn that the National Policy on Education of 1977, which has been revised severally, provides that pupils should be taught in their mother tongue or the language of the environment for the first three years of their formal education. This is based on research findings that have “shown that the use of the child’s mother tongue in his early years has tremendous cognitive and affective advantages over the use of a foreign medium.”

LAN is pushing for a National Language Policy which the National Assembly is working on at the moment. The absence of such policy has been blamed for the deplorable state of indigenous languages in the country.

The Minister of Education, Prof. Rukkayatu Ahmed Rufai, represented by Mrs Mabel Ozumba, decried the state of indigenous languages in the education system, noting that things are not the way they should have been.

She said the problems facing the implementation of mother languages in the education system are not insurmountable, adding that its use will further strengthen national unity.

“All stake holders in the education sector must emphasise, must demonstrate that the use of mother language in our schools is very, very important,” she said.

Contrary to the practice of some schools banning the use of local languages by students, she urged teachers to instead use the local languages to ensure better understanding among students.

“It is important for teachers to make sure you speak the language, especially at the basic level, because if you miss the basic level, you miss the whole thing,” she said.

Students from some secondary schools in the FCT put up drama sketches to buttress the importance of mother languages. The playlet by GSS Tunga Maje particularly left the audience reeling with laughter and a good dose of message on the importance of teaching children their mother tongues.

But in a digital age, some of these languages may struggle to meet up. This prompted UNESCO to make the theme of this year’s event “the use of information and communications technology for safeguarding and promoting languages and linguistic diversity”.

“Languages provide the software for information and communications technologies. These technologies are also a new frontier for promoting linguistic diversity,” Bokova said in her address.

The world mother language day is an annual event which comes up every February 21st. UNESCO sets the theme for each year.