The world
over societies exist with divergent ethnic
and linguistic groups, therefore most societies
are multilingual.
Most African languages are alive
and well linguistically speaking, and also,
a number of African languages now have
a stronger socio-political standing than
they did two decades ago and these
languages (Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo in
Nigeria, Setswana in Botswana, Kiswahili in
Tanzania and Kenya, Wolof in Senegal,
Bambara in Mali and Bamileke in Ivory
Cost among others) have gained ground
against the exogenous languages (the
European official languages e.g. English and
French).
This success is due to the
great awareness through research and
enlightenment going on in Africa, and
of the UNESCO funding facilities and the
interest of the world linguists and
social/scientists in the African linguistic
situation.
The few monolingual or bilingual
countries in Africa, such as Somalia,
Burundi, Rwanda, have found it relatively
easy to promote either a single or
a few interrelated languages to national
status within education.
In Nigeria, three principal
languages and other languages of state
importance are recognized but English occupies
the prominent position as the official
language, language of education, judiciary and
higher commerce.
The three major languages are
Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, each spoken by
more than 40 million speakers. These
are followed by languages of local
importance, which are equally useful in
their respective states. Languages in this
category include Edo, Efik, Kanuri, Tiv,
Urhobo, Fulfude, Igala, Nupe, Ijo, Isekiri,
Ebira, Annang, Gwari, etc. The last category
is the languages that are very small
and are only useful in their respective
communities. These are what some scholars
regard as minority languages.
Vernacularization is the restoration
or elaboration of an indigenous language
and its adoption as official language, e.g.
Hebrew in Israel and tagalog in
Philippines. Internationalization is the adoption
of a non-indigenous language of wider
communication either as an official language
or for such purposes as education or
trade. This is the situation in most
African nations like Nigeria.
Governments at the center, state and
local levels should ensure the
implementation of the mother tongue instruction
in early classes of the primary
school by providing equipment and aids that
will facilitate effective implementation.
Effective monitoring measures should
also be put in place through
supervision by the Principals, Head teachers and
officials of the Education Departments of
State and Local Governments.
No comments:
Post a Comment