By
Anyone born and lives in Nigeria can never be a native speaker of English. I presume some may claim they acquired English at their early and formative years. Or, that English is the only the language they understand and can speak. I tell you, inasmuch as you are in Nigeria as a citizen, any of those claims does not qualify you as a native speaker of the language. No matter your competence or your dexterous ability in using the language, it can never be your mother tongue. Native speaker status is earned by the virtue of being born in the speech community where English is the only indigenous language. And according to a lecturer of English, Lagos State University, a native speaker is someone who speaks a language according to the way of which the original native speakers of that language speak it.
Having known this, I can authoritatively tell you that English is not your father’s language. What you possess as mother tongue is your indigenous languages. Even, if you are not proud to speak it, the language still belongs to you. And, if care is not taking, by implication of not speaking your native language your language may find its way to extinction.
Language extinction, as scholars in Linguistics posit, occurs when native speakers of the language completely shift from their language to embrace a new acquired language. Peradventure, the foreign language will flourish, while one’s neglected local language will die out.
As one of the characteristics of language, it is a carrier of identity. In other words, language is a medium to communicate and express our worldviews about any phenomenon of life. Any society without language, has no social or cultural identity. And, a society which forfeit its language because of foreign language, will also lost its foremost heritage and values embedded in the language. These assertions proved that language is the bedrock and benchmark of any society.
The reason for this treatise is to reoriente those who cherish the English language while their native languages linger in perish. You may possess English as only language, and spontaneously be able to speak it flawlessly. In spite of that, I am delighted to tell you that, aside that no one will reward you for that, especially when your native language languished and shrouded in shambles, certain linguistic aspects, phonetics and accent especially, of English would thwart your ego.
On various occasions, many a person who tends to adopt English as domestic language in this part of Nigeria, many times, perform grossly in terms of competence and performance at different levels of the language. For instance, a parent whose use of the English is quite inadequate, but readily to teach and expose his faulty English to his children who will peradventure pattern their English as thay are being exposed to. By illustration, Junior’s father who orders his son to complete a task “fast – fast”, or “to come now – now”. It may interest you to know that the man has not spoken English but speaking Yoruba in English. A typical Yoruba mother who prohibites her daughter from uttering Yoruba words , but couldn’t phonetically help the child to pronounce “mother” and “murder” distinctively. Do not be dismayed when someone who has acquired English primarily from his parents says to you ” wait here, I’m coming back”. In biblical allusion, it is what is planted that the land produces. Native speakers and competent speakers of English will rather say to you; “wait here, I will be back in a moment”.
To make matters worse, some persons are fond of pidgin English. On what ground, aside from a situation where two uneducated native speakers of different languages engage in communication, would make someone speaks pidgin English. As one English lecturer had suggested, it is even not advisable for a beginner to code switch or code mix English with his local language if he/she desire to be proficient. If English should be spoken, it should be without deliberate bastardisation. Otherwise, be proud to learn your native language and speak it as well.
I acknowledge that English is global and language of social mobility. That is not enough to forsake your native language. English ought to be used in settings that call for it, not always. My appeal to parents and guardians is that indigenous languages should be spoken to their wards at home and at any social gathering while English remains medium of expression in school. Because, if the children are not acquainted with indigenous languages they may lose at both sides; their English may not be proficient as native speakers and their native languages might have died out then.
To round off, let’s try to learn and speak our local languages as we strive for competence in English. Not because we don’t wish our mother tongue to perish, but to preserve our cultural heritage embedded in our languages.
©️Adeleye Damilare
