The Intricacies Of Language – Why We Shouldn’t Speak Foreign Languages At Home With Our Children Part 2

This is the concluding part of my two-part piece on why Ghanaian parents should not speak English at home with their children.

“Herh! Leave There!” - The Appalling “English” We Speak At Home With Our Children.

Ghanaians have been blessed with a multitude of beautiful languages, each of which is a beautiful mosaic of the people’s history, culture and perspective.  In addition, colonialism has brought us English, which is our official language and the language of instruction in our schools. Unfortunately, English is gradually becoming the language of instruction at home in urban areas, among the educated classes. It is, in fact, becoming the first language of many urban children; a trend I find worrying for a number of reasons.

First of all, the children will speak English at school, anyway, and so do not need to speak English only at home.  Some parents claim that speaking English only at home helps the child to pick up the language and so do well at school. This is not wholly true, as teaching the child poor grammar will actually put him at a disadvantage. The child will pick the language up alright in school and master it with the help of books and other audiovisual learning aids. My parents, though highly educated, made it a point to speak Asante Twi at home with their children. I doubt very much that anyone could say that my sisters and I speak English or Asante Twi badly.  In fact, it was the norm while I was growing up in the ‘80’s and 90’s to find parents speaking their mother-tongues at home with their children; so when and how did this phenomenon creep into our homes?

Second, we, the parent generation for the most part, grew up speaking our mother-tongues as the primary or even sole language of communication in our homes. Thus, as bilingual as we claim to be, we tend to think in our mother-tongue, even when we are speaking English, hence our funny transliterations and the bad English we teach our children.  It is common to hear a parent say to their child as they hand them a toffee, a toy, etc: ”take,” “get,” or “collect”, instead of the more appropriate expressions “here, take this,” or “here you go.”   Other transliterated or just plain weird expressions that seem to be quite common are: “I will go and come” (to mean I’ll be right back) or “go and come, eh.”(to mean come back later); [i]“The money will not reach” or “the money is not up to” (to mean it is insufficient) and [ii]“On the light,” where “on” is used as a verb to give a command to turn on the lights! These funny expressions have no meaning, whatsoever for other speakers of English, so if the aim, in speaking English with the child is to make him or her communicate easily with others, then it has been totally defeated.

A direct consequence of speaking English at home is that our children will not have enough exposure to their respective Ghanaian mother-tongues and so will end up either speaking them very badly or not at all. This makes them awkward when they come into situations when they need to communicate with people in the Ghanaian languages. We end up only further alienating our children from their roots and culture. I think it is a terrible thing to put a child in an environment where he cannot communicate with others. This is invariably what we do when we speak English at home with them in our posh little cosmopolitan world, which is hardly representative of the country we live in. Ours is still largely illiterate and one needs to be able to speak at least one local language to function well. It is imperative, in fact, when one seeks political office.

Moreover, when English becomes the only language that we speak with our children, we rob them of their God-given multilingual cultural heritage. Some parents argue that speaking multiple languages with your child confuses him, but this could not be farther from the truth. The fact is that, research has shown that there are many benefits to children being bilingual or multilingual, such as ability to think quickly and to resolve complex issues, since different languages have different kinds of syntax and moving from one language to another demands a cognitive dexterity that being monolingual does not provide.  Now, the Europeans insist that each child at secondary/high school level learn at least two other European languages. Even previously neglected regional languages are being revived and taught in schools, because they now realise the importance of diversity.  In the United States of America, children are being trained to be bilingual, with television programmes such as “Dora the Explorer,” incorporating rudimentary Spanish into their dialogues. Why, then, do we want to rob our children of their right to be multilingual?

It is interesting to note that the immigrant or foreign student who never spoke his mother-tongue at home, still cannot blend in because he has an accent! He still has to write TOEFL if he wants to pursue higher education in the UK, US and Canada and will always be classified as a non-native speaker of English. Even finding a language teaching/coaching job to help pay his bills while he’s a student would be difficult because clients would prefer native speakers of English to him. He would be unable to blend in there, or in his native country because of a language barrier. In the face of this, how then can we justify making our children foreigners in their native land and robbing them of the ability to blend in and belong? It just does not make sense!

I am yet to come across a 2^nd generation Hispanic or Asian (especially Chinese) in the US or UK, who does not speak his parents’ native tongue at home. They, more often than not, speak the language fluently. When it comes to the immigrant African, especially Ghanaman, it is the exception rather than the rule. Even where he or she speaks his/her mother tongue fluently, when he or she has children, he will speak English with them and so they will lose their language and claims to their heritage. The sad thing about this situation is that these children born to immigrant parents are never really accepted in the Western society. For as long as you carry an African name, that is all you will ever be; so why not give your child something to hold on to…an identity that he or she can cherish, knowing that when they come to the motherland for visits, they will belong?

In this era of globalisation, languages die every day, as the number of speakers steadily dwindles each year.  We put our respective languages in danger of dying out when we speak English alone at home with our children, because when these children grow up, they, in turn, will speak English at home with their children and before we know it, English would have become the mother-tongue of the cosmopolitan Ghanaian. What really gets my goat is that the semi-literate, or those who speak English badly have a penchant for speaking “English” with their children. Because they think it is posh to do so!

As pointed out earlier, language is a record of all the experiences of a people. This is very apparent in idiomatic expressions and in the rich and colourful proverbs that Africans love to decorate their speech with. There is a lot of native wisdom in these proverbs, as they deal with all aspects of life – how to live peaceably with one’s family and neighbours (especially important in a communal/compound house setting), what to eat and even how to cook it, local (herbal) medicines...the list is endless! Since our forefathers did not have a means of writing down what knowledge they had acquired, they transferred them through language – especially in the form of proverbs. We lose all this native wisdom when we trade our native language for another’s.

When we take on a foreign language, we take on all aspects of the culture that speaks that language and so we need to understand what we say and why we say what we say in the way we say it, so that we will be able to communicate clearly and effectively. How, for example, do you explain to your curious five-year old why we say ”saved by the bell,” when you have no appreciation of the cultural norm that brought about this expression?  This reminds me of a story: at an Accra nursery school’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, during which the children sang Ïn The Bleak Mid-Winter, when the children got to the end of the first verse; ”snow had fallen, snow on snow; snow on snow on snow” the teacher who was conducting them started shouting emphatically and excitedly: “Snow!” over and over again. He obviously had never seen snow before and so had no idea how utterly miserable mid-winter is, especially when you have snow on snow on snow! 

It is my humble opinion that our lack of local official languages is an obstacle to our development. If we will not think, let alone write in our native language, how then can we develop the language to take in all these new technology-related words that keep springing up every day? We can hardly catch up with the rest of the world on this score and yet we are working extra hard at making our mother-tongues even more obsolete by speaking English at home with our spouses and children!

When we lose our mother-tongue, we not only lose the ability to communicate with our people; we lose our history, our cultural worldview and norms, our sense of identity and of nationhood...we lose everything! If we recognise the fact that language is the repository of our people’s experiences, culture and norms and our history as a people, and yet the most easily lost or subdued aspect of a culture, we will take steps to protect our heritage. Let us take pride in our mother-tongues and speak them with our children. Let us protect our heritage and equip our children to thrive in their own native land. It is the least we could do for them!

---

[i] Top 20 most irritating Ghanaian English phrases of all time by Delalorm Kpeli inghana.wordpress.com. Retrieved on 04/04/12.

[ii] Top 20 most irritating Ghanaian English phrases of all time by Delalorm Kpeli inghana.wordpress.com. Retrieved on 04/04/12

For a list of funny, or rather, appalling “English” expressions parents commonly use when speaking to their children, read Top 20 most irritating Ghanaian English phrases of all time by Delalorm Kpeli on his blog: inghana.wordpress.com. 

The Intricacies of Language – why we shouldn’t speak foreign languages at home with our children

This is the first part of a two-part article on the educated Ghanaian’s use of English at home with their children, instead of their mother tongue. This first part takes a very cursory look at the significance of language, while the second looks at why it is important to develop our local mother tongues and speak them at home with our children, instead of turning English into the children’s mother-tongue or first language.



LANGUAGE IS A MUSEUM

Language is more than just a means by which humans communicate with each other; it is really a repository of human experiences – a veritable walking museum of culture and history and of all aspects of human existence. The language of a people records their religion or beliefs, an example of which is how the Romans used to swear by Jupiter, head of all the gods, hence the expression “by Jove.”

Language records the food a people eat: The Asante expression “wo sum bordeε a, na w’asum kwadu” literally translates as when you prop up the plantain, (so that head of plantain it has borne will mature, rather than drop down and break off), you need to prop up the banana also. Since fufu, (made from plantain and cassava and pounded together) is the main food of the Asantes and banana can be used to substitute for plantain, the expression means that one has to have a “Plan B” ready so that he is not found wanting when his main source/Plan A runs out. The English love to drink tea, thus something being “just one’s cup of tea” means that it is something that person desires or prefers. Language can describe how the food is prepared or eaten. The nursery rhyme, “peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old” is from an era when the left-over soup for the day’s meals would not be thrown away and the ingredients for the day’s soup would be thrown into the pot of day old soup the next day and cooked. This would go on every day until all the soup in the pot was eaten. Language can also describe what their food looks like, such as to describe two people as being “as alike as peas.”

The language of a people can tell you about an important historical event in the lives of the community or tribe. For example, in June 1815, the English defeated Napoleon Bonaparte at the battle of Waterloo. Napoleon had initially expected this battle to be an easy one, but the arrival of the Prussian forces to reinforce the Anglo-Saxon army, led by the Duke of Wellington led to his defeat. Hence the expression, “to meet your Waterloo” which means to come to a final disaster, that every strong man has his day of defeat.

In French, the expression “saoul comme un Polonais,” which means as drunk as a polish man takes its roots from the November 1808 defeat of Somo-Sierra in Spain, in which a small band of Polish soldiers (150 men) defeated this city which was guarded by 8000 with 20 cannons, thus increasing Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire. The French generals, jealous of the Polish unit’s contribution to their victory sought to belittle them by telling Napoleon that the Polish soldiers were drunk, Napoleon retorted that in the future, the French soldiers, then , had better learn to be drunk like the Polish, hence the introduction of that originally pejorative expression, into the French language.

The Ghanaian expression that someone “does not know what is happening in Dodowa Forest) to mean that the person does not know what is happening behind-the scenes. This is a record of the battle of Dodowa, also known as the Battle of Katamanso, in which the Ga-Dangmes and their Akyem and British allies defeated the Asante army in a battle fought in the Dodowa Forest, which is home to the Ga-Dangmes, but foreign soil to the Asantes. For the first time, the British used Congreve rockets, but the bullets the Shai people shot into the trees made such a commotion that the Asante army, already severely decimated by the rockets was frightened and fled back to Kumasi.

Instances of where language can record cultural practices abound. One of such is the expression to not ‘throw away the baby with the bathwater,” an admonition not to throw away something good because it presents difficulties or obstacles came from the practice in England where the people bathed only once in a year, at the beginning of spring. The whole village would bath in the communal baths, starting with the old men and other men, then the women, the children and then babies and young children. Often, the water would be so dirty by the time it got to the turn of the babies that if one did not hold on to the baby and let it slip into the bath, there was a huge possibility that the baby would drown because it would be almost impossible to see it below the surface of the dirty water. Yuck!

Language can record prejudices or indicate which peoples were neighbours and how they regarded each other. For example, when someone slips out of an event without saying goodbye to the host, or takes a leave of absence without permission, the English call it to “take a French leave”, while the French call it to “take an English leave!” Not only does this show that these two groups of people were in contact with each other, but it also indicates a mutual disdain for each other. Incidentally, the Spanish also call it “taking a French leave,” while the Italians call it “taking an English leave.”

Language can indicate the location of a people or their main occupation: If one uses the Ga expression “Korle nya nshona” to refer to another, it means literally that the Korle(Lagoon) is flowing into the sea, but really means that that person speaks Ga very fluently. First of all, the Korle Lagoon is found only in Accra, in the Greater Accra region. This idiom, thus shows that the people who speak this language live around the Korle Lagoon and the sea. If they live near the sea, then they must be sea-faring folk and thus fishing would be their main economic activity.

When you take all these things into consideration, it really is clear that a language is way more than just a means of communicating with others. I shall take a look at the reasons why I think Ghanaians shouldn’t speak English at home with their children in my next post.


Endnotes
Retrieved on 04/04/12 from http://www.napoleon.org/en/fun_stuff/dico/archives.asp
Retrieved on 04/04/12 from http://lespolonais.forumpro.fr/t2022-saoul-comme-un-polonais-retablissons-la-verite
Retrieved on 04/04/12 from http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/alpha/asante1824.htm

WET, CERAMIC-TILED OUTDOOR SPACES - A DISASTER IN THE OFFING!

Two years ago today, I slipped and fell off the topmost of my wet front porch steps, and found myself flying into the air and crashing hard on the ground and, consequently, banging the back of my head on the topmost step. Then began a series of trips to the hospital, undergoing scans and tests, excruciating headaches and back pain, dizzy spells and tons of medication. Three months in all, I spent at home recuperating. Two years onwards I’m still learning to manage a visitor that doesn’t seem to want to go away - lower back pain.



Considering the fact that I banged the back of my head on the top of the step, I consider myself very lucky that I’m still alive and that I didn’t crack or break anything. When I got back on my feet from the fall, I rejoiced because I knew my time on earth wasn’t up yet; I still had lots of work to do. I’m thankful for the gift of life, for every ache I feel in my back and for the changes to my power of vision; it could’ve been so much worse!



I originally wrote this introduction to my article exactly a year ago today, on the 1st anniversary of my deliverance from a close brush with death. It's sad, but everything I said up there a year ago is still relevant today. Today, however, I'm not going to moan about my injury; instead, let's look at the cause of it - smooth ceramic tiles used on outdoor spaces and so can get wet from rain.


I’ve noticed and with very grave concern too that many residences, shops and even office complexes have been tiling their parking lots with ceramic tiles. This is very, very dangerous! Maybe people do not realise the danger this poses to human life and property. I should know...I’m a victim of wet ceramic tiles in an outdoor area.


Each time I enter the Manet Court compound at Airport, which houses two very big and prestigious companies, I can’t help but worry that I’m entering a disaster-zone. The whole parking lot is tiled with smooth, ceramic-looking tiles that have no traction. The result is that even on a normal, dry day, the car tyres screech very loudly, as they struggle to grip the ground. This gets worse, naturally, when it rains. Imagine the number of cars that drive in and out of there on a daily basis! Or the number of heeled shoes that walk on this floor every day! The fact that an accident hasn’t happened there yet doesn’t mean that this area is safe with these tiles. Far from it - it’s actually a disaster waiting to happen!


Some cornershop fronts also have these smooth tiles, broken up and mixed with cement on their floors. While the cement breaks the continuity of the slippery tiles, these floors and steps are still very slippery and dangerous, especially when wet. Wet, slippery tiled floors are very dangerous to walk on, which's why in restaurants and shops, a warning sign is placed on the floors when they are wet.


I wonder, is the aesthetic value of these tiled parking lot floors worth the pain and injury they could inflict on people who slip on them? Whatever happened to those cement design blocks that we’ve been paving our parking lots with?


Safety first, people!!! Safety first!!!