Ghana: International Mother Tongue Day

[Harold Schiffman]

International Mother Tongue Day
By Daily Graphic
Wed, 20 Feb 2008

February 21 every year is International Mother Tongue Day. The day was
declared by UNESCO in 1999 to be celebrated world-wide. The mother
tongue is so important in the upbringing and development of the child
that the day was instituted in recognition of its value and for the
promotion of its usage as an instrument for transmitting culture in
the socialisation of the child.Since its inception, however, this very
important day has not been given its due recognition in Ghana. Due to
the prominence which ought to be accorded to the use of the mother
tongue in transmitting culture and the development of the child, the
Bureau of Ghana Languages, a department under the Ministry of
Chieftaincy and Culture, wishes to associate itself with the
International Mother Tongue Day.

This is the first immediate step in preparing the minds of the
Ghanaian public towards the celebration of the Day in Ghana in grand
style. In the ensuing years, the programme, which will be
well-packaged, will mirror and deal with issues pertaining to the
local Ghanaian languages.

Value of the Mother Tongue

Whether to use the mother tongue or not has been a big linguistic
issue and has attracted a lot of discussions when it is raised by
concerned individuals. There are two major schools of thought: those
who support its use, and those who think otherwise. The mother tongue
of a child is closely associated with his/her growth and development.
As a child matures, his/her language develops and, through language,
the child gains personal experiences. It cannot be disputed that
language is the epitome of culture. The mother tongue conveys and
transmits culture. It is through the language that the folktales,
similes, proverbs and other literary forms of the society are conveyed
to teach societal morals and values and eventually socialise the
individual.

A person's mother tongue is, therefore, a compendium of what society
regards as important; and this language provides the means by which
the individual can study and understand the values and concerns of
society. This is why some language enthusiasts believe that no greater
injustice can be committed against a people than to deprive them of
their language. To quote Vigdis Finnbogadotter, UNESCO's Goodwill
Ambassador for Language, and former President of Iceland, "Everyone
loses if one language is lost because then a nation and culture lose
their memory, and so does the complex tapestry form which the world is
woven and which makes the world an exciting place."

Educators are increasingly convinced of the value of multilingual
education, and studies show that children learn better in their mother
tongue.The latest publication, Education in a Multilingual World
(2003) corroborated this fact and admitted that the most suitable
language for teaching basic concepts to children is the mother tongue.
Indeed, UNESCO declared this finding as far back as 1953 in its
report, The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education.  Indeed, we must
be conscious of the mother tongue, which gives us identity. Mother
tongues are repositories of cultures and which, in the final analysis,
make people what and who they are.


"If we start speaking other languages and forget our own, we would not
be we, we would be clones of an alien people; we would be aliens to
ourselves", the statement declares.

In spite of these values, the Mother Tongue is looked down upon by
many. Therefore, most of us are not taking advantage of its immense
benefits to teach our children.
The international level

As the world went through modernisation, the smaller and weaker mother
tongues around the world started dying. The formal schooling system,
the media and the jobs, all demanded the language of power — the
language used in the domains of power, that is, administration,
government, commerce and education, which had to be learned by people
if they want to be accepted.

As globalisation increases, languages die, and English is the Great
killer language because the media and the corporate sector use it. As
a result of this, half of the world's 6,000 to 7,000 languages are in
danger of extinction.

According to a BBC report on January 24, 2008, a research conducted in
America has revealed that a language in Alaska called Ear has recently
become extinct because the last speaker died recently. According to
the report, though the speaker, a woman, had eight children, they were
not permitted to speak Ear but English.

This can happen to any of our languages in Ghana, so there is the need
for us to protect our mother tongues by promoting their usage.
The Ghanaian situation

In Ghana, some people consider it prestigious to speak or write the
English language at the expense of local languages. Many Ghanaian
intellectuals are also prejudiced to the teaching of local languages,
particularly the formative periods in our basic schools.

The impression created is that our languages are not worthy of any
scientific analysis and study and are therefore not worth studying.
This situation is worrisome indeed. Consequently, in our homes, in
schools and at public places, we see evidence of how Ghanaians look
down on their own mother tongues. Some Ghanaians feel shy to speak
their mother tongues but rather communicate with their children in the
killer language, English.

The school situation

In schools, some authorities are waging silent wars on the teaching
and learning of local languages. In order to improve the teaching and
learning of the English language, school authorities often discourage
their pupils from speaking local languages on their premises.
Offenders are humiliated accordingly. Teachers, in most cases, use
Ghanaian language periods to teach other subjects, another way of
killing local languages. It is quite unfortunate that in areas where
schools are keen at teaching the Ghanaian language, qualified persons
do not make themselves available to teach the language for the mere
fact that the mother tongue is not accorded due respect.
Schools, therefore, fall on anybody who speaks a particular language
and who they feel can teach to do so. Such teachers, more often than
not, teach the wrong orthography to the children; and this eventually
results in disaster.  In senior high schools, students who want to
learn a Ghanaian language are ridiculed by their peers. On occasions
when new staff are to be introduced in the schools, the Ghanaian
language teacher is given a raw deal. He is either welcomed with a
murmur or a boo.
Teachers and pupils do not take the teaching and learning of the
Ghanaian language seriously. The consequence is the poor performance
of most of our children in the Basic Education Certificate Examination
(BECE) and the West African Senior School Certificate Examination
(WASSCE).

Chief Examiners' Reports on candidates' performance at these levels
attest to this. These developments have resulted in the proliferation
of different orthographies in the same language. The irony of this
situation is that those local languages were used to bring us up to
the positions some of us find ourselves in now. The value of the first
language is well established. It is optionally efficient as a teaching
tool as the first language is the tool of thought. One cannot think
effectively in someone else's language. Furthermore, the use of the
local language contributes to the building of self-esteem and
self-consciousness in the child as it creates receptiveness in
education.In the Northern Region of Ghana, a Danish NGO School For
Life is trying to improve the situation through teaching programmes.

In their classes, pupils are given instructions in the local languages
to achieve the desired results. The experiment has proved that as a
result of their competence in the first language, children who enter
the formal school system through school for life perform better in
other subjects than their other classmates.

Government's commitment

The New Education Reform recommends that, "the child's first home
language should be used as the medium of instruction at the
kindergarten and first three years at the basic level". The Government
has realised the importance of the child's first language as an
effective communication tool at this level hence the directive.It is
my belief that education authorities will take this directive
seriously and employ qualified teachers to instruct the children to
achieve the desired results. The Cultural Policy of Ghana recognises
the importance of language as an instrument of Culture and the
Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture is bent on promoting language as a
vehicle for expressing modern ideas and thought processes towards
national development.  The Cultural Policy of Ghana also seeks to
support and promote the writing and publication of books in the
Ghanaian languages.

Wrong language usage  in public places

The Bureau of Ghana Languages has for sometime now taken note of some
misrepresentations in our languages. As an institution charged with
the development of Ghanaian languages, particularly the eleven
government sponsored ones, we are concerned and are obliged to ensure
that the correct thing is done to save our languages and work towards
their promotion. We have of late observed that all around us, most of
the writings in books, on sign posts, on vehicles, on kiosks, on music
albums, on textiles and footage of movies and what have you, do not
conform to the orthographies of the languages in which they are
presented.

This situation has come about as a result of our negative attitudes
towards the mother tongue. This is the situation, and we cannot allow
it to continue. We also hear the airwaves, unpardonable instances of
code mixing by some presenters in some of the Ghanaian language
programmes. While commending our Ghanaian language presenters on the
use of the local languages, we also advise that the right thing is
done in order not to send wrong signals about the languages
concerned.Fortunately, the Bureau of Ghana Languages, which is
responsible for the promotion of the local languages, has sufficient
literature in the Ghanaian Languages for readers.

It is however very pathetic to note that while schools complain of
lack of Ghanaian Language books which affects the teachers' delivery
of lessons and consequently the performance of their pupils in their
schools, publications of the Bureau are locked up in our ware houses
in Tamale and Accra and are not being patronised.
As we celebrate International Mother Tongue Day with the rest of the
world, the Bureau wishes to use the occasion to appeal to the Ministry
of Education, Science and Sports to come into agreement with the
Bureau of Ghana Languages to purchase Ghanaian Language books in bulk
for distribution to schools to enhance the teaching and learning of
Ghanaian Language in our schools. This arrangement we believe will
enhance the teaching and learning of the Mother tongues.In order to
ensure that the local languages are protected and accorded the
attention they deserve.We also recommend that:

The government passes a law that makes it mandatory for any writer of
the Ghanaian Language to seek orthographic approval from the Bureau or
any recognised language institution before exposing it for public
consumption.

The Ghana Institute of Journalism integrates Ghanaian languages in
their Course content to update the skills of presenters in the use of
the Ghanaian Languages.

http://www.modernghana.com/GhanaHome/NewsArchive/news_details.asp?menu_id=1&id=VFZSVk5FMVVXVEE9


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