[lg policy] Let's make Akan Ghana's official language -- Samuel Adjei?

[Harold Schiffman]

Feature: Let's make Akan Ghana's official language -- Samuel Adjei?

Just follow the discussions on any radio station or even the TV
stations and you will observe how much the English language suffers in
the mouths of Ghanaians.

Onia Simon, a research student


	
ARTICLE: Let's make Akan Ghana's official language -- Samuel Adjei?
I would have glossed over this news item because I believed-maybe
wrongly - Ghana had long settled this issue. But it appears we still
have some miles to travel before we finally put this issue to rest.
This news item was from an International Conference on Culture and
Development, attracting participants from Ghana, Nigeria Sierra Leone
and other nations. See Tuesday 16 November, 2010,15:20 GMT OF JoyFM
news items. In this article, I intend looking at the arguments of Mr.
Samuel Adjei and Nana Obiri-Yeboah, the reaction from one Comrade
Bright Selasie Avornyo, the implication of what language policy we may
adopt as a people, the way forward for us as a nation and finally how
to raise the quality of debate on culture.

Language is a mirror that reflects the culture (herein defined as the
way a group of people think and not just dancing and clothing) of a
people. The Spanish in expressing the idea of age says “Yo tengo diez
años”, the French says “J’ai dix ans”. Transliterated into English
they mean “I have 10 years. The English will say “I am 10 years old”.
>>From this, one can see that to the French and Spanish, age is
something one acquires much as one buys a phone or a car. The English
thinks it is an integral part of you: you are your age.

Mr. Samuel Adjei/Nana Obiri-Yeboah Argument
I am referring to these gentlemen not in their personal capacity but
as representing the school of thought they represent.

Mr. Samuel Adjei talks of disrespect for African languages. Well, I am
finding a hard time understanding this! Does he mean the Ghanaian born
abroad - and there are quite a number of them - who does not speak an
African language is disrespectful to Ghanaian languages? What of some
of our star athletes who have brought honour to Ghana but cannot speak
a Ghanaian language? I think the reading public will be best served if
this disrespect is further explained. What it is and what it is not?

He further goes on to blame politicians for Ghana’s inability to adopt
a national language!! Here again, there are more questions than
answers. If Dr. Kwame Nkrumah wanted to choose a national language,
which one do you think he will choose? Nzema of course!! If he chooses
Ewe, he definitely will not be able to set foot in Nkroful! The same
question and situation will face General Ankrah, Prof. Abrefa Busia,
Dr. Hilla Liman, down to Mr. John A. Kufuor and our current president.
By the way, which language do you think Mr. Rawlings will choose? Ga
or Ewe? Have you realized anytime he wants to connect with Ghanaians
on a political platform he usually uses Ga? I am sure you are thinking
they will be objective. Everybody has a sentimental attachment to
his/her mother tongue, including politicians.

On adoption of a Ghanaian language (I am not even talking of Akan)
facilitating teaching and learning, there are serious doubts. What
research studies have been conducted on this? What have been their
conclusions? Even among language experts, whether a child when taught
in his/her mother language can improve learning is still a matter of
debate. There are research studies that prove it will help, others
conclude it will not help. But let us come from the ivory tower and
look at the reality. How would you express “mauve” in Dagarti, Frafra
or Akan. In fact I know some of the readers are wondering what this
word is. It is a colour!!!! You see, as I said above, language is an
expression of the worldview of a people. Sorry to say this, but the
world that our languages express is a limited one. I could almost hear
someone saying we will create words for them. That is fine. But
remember, while we are busily reinventing the wheels of success others
are still creating new ones. By the time we are done, they have
increased their speed with fresh wheels. There are a lot of scientific
words that will not find place in our local languages and which will
take years to get into our lexicon. We should also not lose sight of
the fact that language is an organism which must grow by itself.
Artificial languages like Esperanto have died because they were not
organic. Attempts to “purify” languages have not survived. The French
Academy has always come to accept words that it originally said were
not “pure”. I am very sure students of this school of thought are
being inspired by the great African novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’o. But
wait a minute!! You need to know who Ngugi wa Thiong’o represents or
better still who he is, the conditions and reasons for which he has
fought for the use of African languages in writing African novels and
finally the results he has achieved, then you will appreciate his
fight. Ngugi is a consummate Marxist (an ideal that has been declared
decrepit). His choice to write in Gikuyu was because he wanted to
reach the largely illiterate Gikuyu population who were part of the
freedom struggle in the Mau Mau. By the time he was writing his first
book in Gikuyu his claim to fame was writing not in Gikuyu but in
English. The novel in Gikuyu Caitaani Matharabainin (Devil on the
Cross) was read aloud at public places which then inspired revolt
against the British settlers. The failure of his novel Matagari, also
in Gikuyu, to win the applause of literary critics and even his
inability to appeal to his readership would compel him to return to
where he started: writing in English. By now, even his fellow authors
thought he was carrying his ideas too far. If the failure of Ngugi to
use African language to write novel does not convince you then maybe
the standpoint of Chinua Achebe may. This is a man who needs no
introduction when it comes to pan Africanism. This is what he has to
say concerning writing in African languages:

It is not that I underrate their[African languages] importance. But
since I am considering the role of the writer in building new nation I
wish to concentrate on those who write for the whole nation whose
audience cuts across tribe or clan. And these, for good or ill, are
writers in English

“The Role of the Writer in a New Nation” in Nigeria Magazine, 81 196.

He has not changed his stance ever since. If we as a country decide to
be stubborn and take the path of Ngugi, we will be embarrassed by the
outcome, just as Ngugi was at a conference when a fellow author Lewis
Nkosi shouted him down.

The next argument Mr. Samuel Adjei puts forward is the experience from
certain countries. I am sure countries he has in mind are the Asian
ones: China, Japan, and South Korea. I will look at some of these
countries. China until 1978 when they began their reform was not doing
all that well. By way of clarification, the Chinese do not speak the
same language. Every province has local dialects, which are not
mutually intelligible. In fact within the same Province, there are
different dialects as well, which are also not mutually intelligible.
The language taught at school is Putonghua that is the common Chinese,
the Mandarin. This language is studied by those in the majority i.e.
the Han, the minority ethnic groups and foreigners. So in actual fact
this language is their second language. It may surprise you to know
that there are foreigners who speak better Common Chinese, Mandarin
than the indigenous Chinese. This policy by the Chinese to create a
common Chinese was to facilitate communication. So you see, they see
the importance of unity in language. Will choosing one local language
provide us this? Having been closed to the outside world, China now
has an aggressive policy to encourage the Chinese to learn the English
language. Chinese people are now mad about learning English. When I
say mad I mean mad. There is a type of English they call Crazy
English. And it is crazy!! They go lengths to study English and the
personal investment some are making is simply amazing!! So what the
Chinese finally ends doing is speaking three languages, his local
dialect, the common Chinese, Mandarin and then English. Most would go
for English for obvious reasons. On Japanese, this is what my Japanese
floor mate tells me: by junior high school they start learning
English. He says a yet-to-be implemented policy is to start the
learning of English from the primary stage. Japanese has influence
from Chinese and today a lot of words especially in technology are
borrowed from English. The same can be said about Korean. Coffee he
tells me is pronounced as /kohi/ in Japanese, /keopi/ in South Korean
and /kafei/ in Chinese. The English language has muscle!! It affects
every language. It is no longer a language, it is a multipurpose tool.
Whiles we talk about these languages, let us not forget the number of
speakers these languages command. China is not spoken only in China
but is also spoken in other Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore,
etc. Some of these countries have got the wherewithal to develop their
languages. Are we ready to undo the structures set for the development
of English, restart the development of a yet-to-be-selected local
language? Will it be worth the effort looking at the other areas that
are crying for financial resources?

Mr. Adjei finally advises Ghanaians to make use of the language and
not end up paying more to study it in the future which is the case in
many universities abroad. This is a good advice. Ghanaians who had the
opportunity to learn their own mother tongue or a Ghanaian language
will have themselves to blame as they will always have to hide when
their language is been spoken. There are unfortunate Ghanaians in this
state. Here again, this phenomenon is a worldwide one. There are
Chinese who were born in U.S. and who return home to learn the Chinese
language. This is a phenomenon we will have to contend with in an
increasingly mobile and globalized world.

Lack of a distinct language for official use responsible for Africa’s
current state? Let us look at this again. We have a distinct language
for official use and that is English. If what Nana Obiri-Yeboah meant
was we are not using a local language, it is still open to debate. I
have already given the case of China. Japanese has borrowed words from
English. In any case, what are we running away from? The English
language itself is not purely 100 percent English as it was. A small
fraction of the words in the English language are actually words that
can be said to be English. The greater majority are borrowed from
virtually every language on the earth. What tribe does the Queen
belong to?

Comrade Bright Yao Avornyo’s Argument/Position
Again, I am not referring to him in his personal capacity but to the
group of people he represents as seen in his article. You can check
http://news.myjoyonline.com/features/201011/56562.asp for his
rejoinder.

I could read a tinge of hurt or being slighted from his article. This
can be seen by his attempt to call into play the victory of the Ewes
over the Ashantis on the Amedzofe Mountain. In fact he claims Ewe is
more international than Akan because quite apart from been spoken in
other African countries it also spoken in some parts of Germany. Now
the argument has started among people who are lettered. How will the
argument be like among our unlettered folks? It will be fiercer! And
there are other local languages that will put forth cogent arguments
for the selection of their languages. And so the debate will go, time
will be wasted. What should unite us may end up dividing us.

This position represents that of a number of people who already feel
will be slighted and perhaps are already hurt by the thought that
someone has proposed this idea.

The sincerity of those who put forward this agenda is seriously
impaired. First of all, most of the advocates are of a particular
ethnic group and they propose the same language. Any discerning
individual will not take them seriously. Besides, they belong to a
particular age group. They are adults. Is it the case, that when they
have achieved what they want in life, because of the need to be seen
as fighting for the cause of “their people” (maybe they want to be
seen as heroes) they all of a sudden realize the importance of
speaking a local language? Tell me, have you seen a young man, in his
20’s or 30’s championing this cause? Is it the case they fail to see
the demands of the moment for the Ghanaian youth? The Ghanaian youth
needs English to get to the next level in his career. And for those
who are championing this cause, let us run this test of sincerity to
the cause they are advocating: a) if they were given the opportunity
to rewrite their theses will they write it in a local language? b)
Given the choice of sending their child to Harvard to study MBA in
English and studying MBA in Akan, Ewe, or Frafra at University of
Ghana, (assuming we can do that and I think we can do it because we
have fluent speakers of these languages at The Business School. We can
have the Professors at The Linguistics Department of University of
Ghana to help in this) which one will they choose?

Implications of using a local language as national language
Already the implications are staring us in the face. The rejoinder by
Comrade Bright Yao Avornyo epitomizes what will happen if a local
language is made a national language. We have a lot of divisions among
various local languages. Even within one local language there are
divisions. What we need now is a language that will unify Ghana. That
is what China has done with the creation of the common Chinese,
Mandarin. In the account in Genesis chapter 11, the reason the people
could not build that tower was because they spoke different languages.
For now, the choice of any our local languages will not offer us this
unity. English offers us the best hope at this. This may be a painful
decision, that is for those who are overly bent towards local
languages like Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

Have we given thought to the financial cost? We will have to change
all the documents in all the ministries. The documents for the
teaching of driving, documents for the banks and ahh!!! How about the
computers? Are we going to change them and create a Ghanaian one? How
are we going to call CPU? Okay, when I get to the airport at JFK,
Beijing or Heathrow, how will my Passport be like? I like dreaming but
this seems to be a daylight nightmare!! I cannot imagine what mess we
are going to get ourselves into.

How about the political ramifications? If Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who built
the one time strongest political party in Africa could not use his
magic and charisma to make a local language a national one, I’m yet to
see which president could afford this gamble. Indeed the fact that
none of our political leaders has talked about this on a political
platform suggests they know this is a no-go area. And for a good
reason I guess.

The international ramifications are just too much for Ghana. We would
have committed suicide by isolating ourselves. Even powerful nations
like China are drifting towards English. Already with English as our
official language, the standards of spoken and written English are
falling if not already fallen. You want some evidence? Just follow the
discussions on any radio station or even the TV stations and you will
observe how much the English language suffers in the mouths of
Ghanaians.

Raising the quality of Debate
Already with English as our official language, the standards of spoken
and written English are falling if not already fallen.

I suggest a raising of the quality of debate on what culture is. As I
said much earlier, culture is more than the wriggling of the waist by
ladies or stamping of the feet by men to the admiration of some eyes
ready to feast on that sight or wearing of a certain type of clothe.
It is how you view your world. Why do Africans in the Sahara wear
loose clothing like the Boubou? We live in the tropic, it is hot
there, we need air to blow around us if not we may die of heat. Why
would a European wear a tight-fitting dress? His weather is cold, he
will need to conserve some heat if not he may die of cold. This
culture affects our attitude to time, work ethics and human relations.
I think these are the core issues that the Centres of National Culture
in Ghana should be looking in addition to the language. These are the
issues that have been the bane of Ghana’s efforts at development.

The Way Forward
We have to make peace with our past and welcome the change that we so
much desire. We must accept the fact that one time a certain group of
people colonized us and changed the course of our history. The way
things stand now, going back to pick a local language and making it a
national one would just not be a wise decision. We will end up like
Ngugi wa Thiong’o. It is even paradoxical he teaches in a Capitalist
country and sought for refuge there. Should we abolish our local
languages? No!!!!!!! By all means we should study them. There are
people who speak their native languages, English and French with equal
facility. We should perfect our command over the Queen’s language, it
has come to stay. Of course, I am not suggesting we speak like the
English or American but certain aberrant pronunciations should not be
tolerated. For example tree /tri/ for three /Өri/, boat /bəut/ for
both /bəuӨ/.

For those who will underestimate the power of English, well, in Ghana
you will feel the pain and when you have the opportunity to travel
abroad you will feel even more. In fact, I will not only advise you to
learn English well, add French to it and you will never regret it. But
of course learn your mother tongue too.


Credit: Onia Simon
Research Student
Educational Economics
Huazhong Normal University
Email: onia22simon at yahoo.com

http://news.myjoyonline.com/features/201011/56735.asp

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