Can you speak your language?
Why I haven’t been interested in learning my native language
What’s that noise you ask? It’s the sound of bells ringing in the streets as the crowd chants “Shame! Shame!” every time I have to answer that simple question: can you speak your language?
I can’t. And of course, the inquiry as to why always comes about. After all, I am a Nigerian. Both parents born and bred in Plateau and education in the same state up to the secondary school level. So why the hell can’t I speak my own language?
For the longest time, I would go to the village or meet relatives who would speak Ngas to me and I would politely smile and tell them I couldn’t speak the language. They would often be surprised with enlarged eyes and gaping mouths for dramatic effect. The most pernicious and irritating of the bunch would just continue speaking in Ngas, laughing at my lack of understanding and the blankness of my face.
Of course, there are others who tread more gently and aren’t as annoying and it is to these people that I have more pleasant conversations ending in a promise to try and learn. As unfortunate as it is, I have been lackadaisical about my promise and am still only armed with greetings and basic phrases. I had always taken the blame for it, feeling guilty for the ease in which I speak English; a language so vastly different from mine, so borrowed and so foreign, yet the most familiar to me.
I’ve always loved to read and let me tell you, it’s definitely not Ngas books that I was reading. For a long time, I wasn’t even interested in Nigerian or African books for the reason that a few bad ones I had come across was the rule and very far from the exception. I can go into a whole tirade about how neocolonialism has ensnared many Africans in the most subtle chokehold but that is for another day. What I’m trying to say is that what was mine felt foreign to me and it had not proved necessary for anything.
Thinking about it, I believe that’s one of the reasons my disinterest continued to grow over the years. You see, I had gone through all this trouble to learn English (all my early renditions of ABC's and nursery rhymes are proof of this), was spoken to in English at home, was told that alongside Mathematics it was a subject everyone must pass. . . do you see where I’m headed with this? People generally don’t learn what is not relevant to them.
I’m not calling names here, but I shouldn’t have myself to blame, I throw that blame to my parents (technically, parents isn’t a name! Sorry for throwing you under the bus family). Of course, it is easier to do so because I could go with the excuse of “they should have taught me” and even though this is valid, is it not still my responsibility to seek to learn? It is. Recently I asked my father why he had never actually just taught me Ngas and he did not answer exactly but said that he himself was around my age when he properly learned Ngas. My mother, on the other hand, is more fluent at reading the language than speaking it and I find it all so funny! I wasn’t satisfied with my father’s answer but I took it anyway because there really is never a bad time to learn.
I remember dismissing the idea of learning my language once because despite the fact that I had been taught French from Primary school till about Jss3 somehow the only French I know is “Oui, Bonjour mademoiselle croissant”. I had told myself I was bad at languages because even the Hausa which I regularly speak is quite distinct in terms of accent, and so is my pidgin. But all of those things are merely excuses and the importance of language is unequivocal. I have always known this but only now do I really understand how much of myself is in my language and what it means to me. Ngugi wa Thiongo put it succinctly when he said “If you know all the languages of the world but not your mother tongue, that is enslavement. Knowing your mother tongue and all other languages too, is empowerment”
Can you speak your language? If you’re like me, how about we really give it a try this time?
