A look at our Dying Dialect: My Experience from 7 Years Ago

AbsNews Net11 months ago11 months ago4310 mins

After taking a look at the labcoats and not knowing which inscription was meant for which, I asked, “how will I know which should carry macronac or macromox?” Oga Raphael simply answered saying, “e khey yeh-lhe-lhe ye-eynikpo ney.” Now the owner of the lab coats Dr. Ahmed was like “ok” but you should have seen the look on my face as these two guys swept me off my feet while communicating in my mother tongue. They were not speaking any foreign language. They were simply speaking my (our) language yet I was finding myself lost in incommunicado. I couldn’t even guess what’s being said nor was there any hint with which I could grasp what they mean but at the risk of losing face I asked what he meant by ‘yeh lhe-lhe’. That was when the Doctor told me that the tailor said he has made indications on the clothes using numbers to mark the clothes. Oboy! You should have seen how my lower jaw almost fell from my head. ‘Orlhi or-khey yeh lhe-lhe ye-nikpo ney’, was his answer. My God! If only you could see how shame weighed heavily on my shoulders and made me humble? My ego was on an all time low at that moment. You know that feeling when you remember once telling someone “person wey no sabi speak e language na person?” Damn! I literarily reeked off my own constipation.

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Yes, the matter clap my hands wella that day. In fact there’s no better way to bring to fore how I felt than to say I was disgraced. Language a vehicle for the conveyance of our thoughts, a symbol for the identification of a peopl is one whose use and importance can not be overemphasized. A people’s language to a great extent defines them. I think it’s fair to say that the thought process of a people is to a great extent shaped/woven around their tool for and of communication_ language. It is the most salient and conspicuous means for the identification of a people. Yes but when one is not conversant with his/her language it is my expert opinion to state emphatically that such person is disadvantaged amongst his/her people. It is like having a dwarf in a house famous for having giants _how small will that dwarf feel mentally and physically about himself will be better expressed by him alone.

It has begin to ocur to me that I dare not boast in the public saying that am an ‘ormotor’ without being amply armed with a good understanding of my mother tongue _so should you.

However, whilst gropping in my self-inflicted shame, I realised the fact that this language flaw is entirely not my fault. But who is to be blamed? Ok let’s say it is a common thing to hear even grand parents saying something like, “I go put ikpagba for your ikpalo tseynu-wa chialha ley.” “Wia you dey go for okotor?” And the likes of badly concocted pidgin English. What’s wrong with just speaking the language of our fathers? To add to this already dastardly act ‘obe owena nitsuno agborma’ is far from the currilum of learning for schools in and around our environs. We are so enmeshed in trying to look/speak foreign that we forget our identity as a people. “Sheybi we even sabi speak the English seff?” No! Rather, we are trapped in between what we emulate and that which we relegate but is most important (and so we begin to answer questions in class using gutter language _pidgin English.)

It is so sad that the majority of our younger generation cannot tell the difference (in voice inflection) between the words ‘to calculate’ and ‘to quarrel’ or between ‘oil’ and ‘dew’ in their mother tongue. I was once chatted up by a Lady who lives in Asaba but claims she’s from Auchi. What a nice chat it was until I said something in Etsako that dissuaded her from chatting further.

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Now come let’s reason. Is it not true that one who cannot talk has some sort of vocal deformity? If yes, what do we call one who cannot speak/understand the language of his/her people? Ok, let me not put the blame on me and these seemingly deformed people simply because they can’t speak their language. Aren’t we all products of a society that’s guilty of killing her values? A society that does not care much about its medium of communication simply because she sees no danger in her people’s inability to speak and comprehend her language very well. Na here you go see one grey heard man with a turban and title from the palace say, “I am a custodian of Auchi people’s culture.” Meanwhile his children cannot say custodian in our dialect. Our schools will be teaching English, Math and gbogbo-eh at the detriment of our beautiful but dying uno-agbormha yet the children will still not understand. What about our religious leaders? No o! They’d rather rant in English as if God has assured them heaven forgetting that which must not be forgotten.

It is high time we revisited the issue of making Uno-Agbormha a compulsory subject or course of study in our schools like we have in the East and Western parts of the country. An Igbo man once said, “the Angels are quicker to pick prayers that are packaged with our various local language than they do when we confuse them with English.” Funny but he believes that Angels like humans have languages. For God’s sake these people teach math using their language. Na we near oyinbo pass?

Written on this day 7 years ago.