Languages are important vehicles for the preservation of culture
Last Saturday, the world marked the 15th anniversary of the “International Mother Language Day” with the theme, “Inclusive Education through and with Language – Language Matters”. Unfortunately, the day passed us by in Nigeria without any appreciation of the danger we inflict on ourselves and the future of our people with the way we neglect our indigenous languages. To worsen matters, majority of members of the upcoming generation have been brought up to speak English with little or no regard for the indigenous languages.
The International Mother Language Day, which has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity, represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh. It was a struggle that resonated with many people across the world. And on May 16, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on member states “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world”.
It is estimated that there are 6,500 spoken languages in the world today, but around 2,000 of those have fewer than 1,000 speakers while half of the world’s population speak the 13 most populous languages, including Mandarin, English and Hindi. However, against the background that no fewer than five have become extinct in the last quarter of a century, it is important that critical stakeholders pay the requisite attention, especially since there are sufficient policy guidelines for the integration of our languages into the education system.
According to Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director General “the focus for the post – 2015 agenda must fall on the priority of advancing quality education for all – widening access, ensuring equality and inclusiveness, and promoting education for global citizenship and sustainable development. Education in the other language is an essential part of achieving these goals – to facilitate learning and to bolster skills in reading, writing and mathematics.”
Research undertaken in Nigeria in the early 1970s highlighted the importance of using local languages for instruction in our educational system. Former Education Minister and scholar in the field, the late Professor Babs Fafunwa had written several books to make a compelling case for the mother tongue as the medium of education for the first 12 years of the child’s life in Nigeria. After tracing the historical background of mother-tongue education, describing educational policy and the primary school system under British rule, and the changes made thereafter, Fafunwa had discussed curriculum development and production, describing how panels developed materials for mathematics, science, social studies, Yoruba, and English instruction. He believes that the use of mother tongue as instructional language increases literacy-rate improvement and enhancement of the instructional language itself.
For UNESCO, “appropriate language education” is fundamental to enable learners to benefit from quality education, learn throughout life, and have access to information. This is possible if there is an approach to language education that promotes the use of at least three languages: one of which should be a mother tongue or first language. Language education can also be seen as a means to ensure that, down the road, learners participate as global citizens, acting for change at both the local and global levels.
As it has been observed by several scholars, languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing the tangible and intangible heritage of any nation. Therefore, all moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues in Nigeria will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of our cultural traditions and inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.
