Why mother tongues are dying (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Why mother tongues are dying

Nairobi-Kenya
http://www.eastandard.net/mags/society/articles.php?articleid=1143967620

In a bus headed for Nairobi, an FM station keeps travellers company as
chatty presenters talk politics and read the news in Kikamba. Passengers
exchange knowing glances and chip in a word or two, but not all understand
what is being said.

Angelina Mueni, 18, is one such person. She is not familiar with her mother
tongue. "I can understand what is being said but I cannot speak the
language," she says. Since childhood, she has only spoken English and
Swahili.

"My parents and siblings all speak Swahili and English and since am the
lastborn, I had to take after them. After all, how can I start speaking
Kikamba when no one else in the house speaks it?" she asks.

Although she says she is learning the language, she has a long way to go
before she can speak it with confidence. "I think it is too late for me to
start learning now," she says.

Her parents are not worried about her inability to communicate in their
mother tongue, she says. "If they were, they would have taken drastic
actions like taking me to the rural areas to stay with my grandparents or
better yet, be around people who speak Kikamba throughout," she says adding
that she has only been to the grandparents’ place twice.

Kenyans may not know it, but visitors from other countries marvel at the
rich diversity of local languages in the country. It is a heritage that is
in perpetual danger as young people shun the language of their mothers.

Language use leaves a mark

When Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o launched Murogi wa Kagoogo, a novel written in
Kikuyu, many scholars laughed it off as a joke. How does a scholar of
Ngugi’s repute expect us to read his work in Kikuyu, they asked.

Ngugi had demonstrated by word and deed that he was willing to go great
lengths to keep African languages alive. For him, using foreign languages
in literature was a mark of neo-colonisation.

When a child is born in a given community, she acquires a language and
learns how to use it, with whom and when.

Language experts say today’s children tend to lose their cultural identity,
language and culture, the language being a prime transmitter of human
culture from one generation to the next.

Anthropologists say all language uses, through all stages of cultural
evolution, leave an mark on society. This means that if a generation
misinterprets its language, its culture is automatically in danger of
misinterpretation.

The danger of some languages disappearing is so real that the United Nations
Scietific and Cultural Organisation regularly conducts studies worldwide.

The Unesco Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing says a
language is endangered if it is no longer learned by children or at least,
by a large part of the children of that community.

Six Kenyan languages are extinct, five are seriously endangered, at least
three are endangered and a number of others are potentially endangered,
says Unesco.

Languages of the El Molo and Omotik, which are still recognised as Kenyan
languages, are on the brink of extinction.

Nancy Mackenzie says how children are brought up determines whether they
speak their mother tongue. "Most of a child’s life is spent with a nanny
who does not come from the same background as the child’s parents," she
says.

"The nanny will speak to the child in either Kiswahili or English and in the
end, the child ends up speaking the same language as the nanny."

Parents to blame

According to her, the buck stops with parents. "If they hire a nanny who is
not from their background, they will have to accept the fact that their
child will grow up not knowing his mother tongue especially if they spend
little time with their child," says Mackenzie, a mother of two who lives in
Nairobi.

But Rose Wanjiku, a Kikuyu married to James Omondi, a Luo, feels mother
tongue is not that important.

"All that matters is efficient communication," she says. "My children do not
speak either of our languages and I do not consider it a problem. Although
they cannot utter a single word in either language, they understand what is
being said," she says of her four children.

Sometimes, she says, she speaks her mother tongue to her children and they
respond in Kiswahili or English. "We never confuse each other by the
language we use. Whether Kikuyu, Dholuo or Kiswahili, we understand each
other perfectly," she says adding that it is all that counts.

Not so for Robert Ocholla, a father of two. He sends his children to Kisii
whenever schools close "specifically to ensure they practise their mother
tongue and to interact with my parents".

"It is my duty to make sure that the children stay in touch with their
culture and mother tongue plays a big part in the their upbringing," says
Ochola, who lives in Nairobi.

His children, he says, can speak Gusii fluently without mixing it with
Kiswahili or English and without stammering.

If people are distinguished by the distinct language they speak, the
question remains: Does it matter if Kenya’s indigenous languages died?

Maurice Ragutu, a language teacher at the University of Nairobi, says it
does matter. "Vernacular or mother tongue helps people to trace their
ancestral roots, culture, heritage and traditions, which all help promote
unity in a community," he says.

According him, indigenous languages are dying not only in Kenya but also in
other countries. "The society we live in is dynamic," he says, saying the
dynamism explained why some languages are under threat of extinction.

"Many parents are to blame for their children’s inability to speak their
mother tongue," says the lecturer. "It is the duty of the parent to expose
children to their language," he says, adding that children can only learn
their mother tongue by being exposed to it.

He gives the example of an experiment involving an Egyptian Pharaoh who
thought that Egyptian was the only language in the world. "He took a
Pheonician newborn and gave it to a shepherd to keep it in seclusion," he
explains.

The shepherd was ordered not to utter a single word within the child’s
earshot. "The main objective of conducting this experiment was to find out
if mother tongue was inborn or learnt through exposure."

In the experiment, at the age of eight months, the child uttered his first
word in Phoenician. "He said ‘Bekos,’ which is Phoenician for bread," he
says.

Psycholinguists also say language is mastered at birth and mastered in
youth. "From the ages of three months to three years, a child’s first
language comes automatically," says Ragutu.

>From the age of ten onwards, as Mueni’s case demonstrates, it is difficult
to learn one’s mother tongue.

"It is possible to learn it as a second language but not as quickly and not
as deeply like one would have mastered when young," he says.

"Fluency could also become a problem when they decide to learn," he says.
"It will be like a Kenyan learning French or German as a second language,"
he explains.

Political power, wealth and language

Language experts are concerned that children are not mastering their mother
tongues as before. "Even if they are born in the rural areas, you cannot
compare their fluency with that of their parents," he says, noting that in
the long run, some languages could easily disappear.

"Linguistically speaking, on the matter of mixed parentage, a child is most
likely to learn the language of the dominant partner, who in this case is
the mother because it is said that a small child is the property of the
mother," he says, adding that a growing child tends to spend more time with
the mother at the time a child learns how to speak.

He says taking the child to rural areas can help nurture their mother tongue
but that also depends on whom they interact with. "Rural areas are not like
they used to be before," he says.

Although many languages are under threat, many governments have policies to
preserve them. "Political power, wealth and the size of the population that
speaks them as well as how they value them will determine whether a language
survives," he says giving an example of matatu (public transport) drivers.

"You will find that when they are speaking to each other, they use their
mother tongues, whether Kikuyu, Dholuo or Kikamba," he says.

According to him, the matatu drivers take pride in speaking their own
languages. "All languages are equal as long as they can communicate," he
says.

Globalisation, says Ragutu, not only threatens languages but whole
communities. "In Venezuela, the Trumai tribe is already extinct while Latin
is considered to be a dead language."

A language is considered dead, he says, is if no native speaker speaks it.
"Latin is one of them because even though it is used by many nations, none
is an original speaker," he says.

Ancient Greek, he says, has also disappeared, so has Prot-Indo-European,
which was spoken in Europe and some parts of Asia.

In Kenya, endangered languages include Suba, El Molo, which has only 300
speakers, Pongok from Western, which were absorbed by the Luhya and the
Tiriki.

Others which are on the brink of extinction include Boni, Kore, Segeju and
Dahalo from the Coast; Kinare, Sogoo, Lorkoti and Yaaku in the Central;
Ongamo and Omotik in the south and Bong’om, Terik and Suba in the west.

In the Bible, the original language, which is called the "language of Adam",
was also lost at the Tower of Babel.

According to Ragutu, the Bible shows Adam as the originator of human
language, having named all that was on earth in his own words as God
commanded him.