THE INTERNATIONAL Mother Language Day is observed across the world on February 22 every year. The idea to celebrate the International Mother Language Day stemmed from the initiative of Bangladesh. It was approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) at the 1999 General Conference and has been observed throughout the world since 2000.
The theme for this year’s celebration, which holds on Wednesday, February 21, 2024, is Multilingual Education is a Pillar of Intergenerational Learning. The reason for choosing this theme is owing to the reports credited to UNESCO that “today, 250 million children and young people still do not attend school and 763 million adults do not master basic literacy skills.” To this end, UNESCO argues that “mother tongue education supports learning, literacy and the acquisition of additional languages.”
Going forward, the International Mother Language Day reminds us that our mother language is paramount in teaching cultural diversity to the child. Having this in mind, the Idoma language is endangered and there is the need to do something urgently to prevent it from dying. In view of this, Idoma parents are encouraged to speak the language to their children at home as it will not affect their acquisition of other languages of the environment, or English language which is taught at schools.
One of the major features of language is identity. A speaker is identified by the language that s/he speaks and this is paramount since the language shapes the culture of the speaker. The culture of a group of people includes the material culture, for instance, local farm implements, cooking items, and attires; and non-material culture, such as thoughts, actions, attitudes, honesty and values. The two facets of culture are better learned and practised in the child’s mother language (mother tongue).
As the International Mother Language Day is observed this year, it is a reminder to reflect on one’s native language to determine its linguistic status in terms of the spoken aspect of the language. Linguists generally and sociolinguists in particular have claimed that for a language to continually exist, the speakers must maintain it by speaking the language, and failure to speak it will lead to language shift due to the influence of other dominant languages, and thereafter the language dies or becomes extinct.
With particular reference to Idoma, this year’s celebration of International Mother Language Day calls to mind the fact that the language is undergoing language shift. Today, majority of the speakers of Idoma are adults. By implication, the adult speakers are reducing through death, speech defects or migration to other language communities, thus the language becomes endangered. The youth are often found to speak the language with difficulty and most times they make use of code switching/mixing which distorts the entire feedback from the entire communication processes and information structure.
With the theme of this year, Idoma is one of the multiple languages in the multilingual country of Nigeria. Therefore, it can be used to foster unity among the neighbouring languages like Tiv, Igala, Igbo and other languages living among the Idoma speaking communities. This can be made possible when the teaching and learning of Idoma is projected at schools for documentation and fostering of cultural diversity among the neighbouring languages.
It is surprising that today, social events in Idoma land, such as marriage ceremonies, naming ceremonies, and traditional events such as coronation of chiefs are moderated mostly in English language with a bit of code mixing with Idoma language. This is gradually affecting the speaking of Idoma and its cultural values. Once the language is lost, the culture is also lost because language is the medium for conveying the culture of a group of people from the adults to the younger ones.
In the 70s and 80s, primers were developed with teaching aids for the teaching and learning of Idoma language at primary schools across Idoma land based on the provision of National Policy on Education (NPC), that the child should be taught in the regional (local) language and the official language (English) at the primary school level. So, the medium of instruction then at primary school in Idoma land included Idoma and English. The interest then was sustained by language teachers, the Idoma Area Traditional Council, Ward Heads and Village Heads.
Today, it is unfortunate that the teaching of Idoma at primary schools is no longer practicable. In fact, it has become a rule, informally, that any child who speaks Idoma in the class will be punished by the teacher. The wrong impression by the current generation of teachers and parents is that the child who speaks the mother tongue will be distorted in acquiring English language. By implication, English language is given prominence at primary schools to the detriment of Idoma language.
Going forward, the International Mother Language Day reminds us that our mother language is paramount in teaching cultural diversity to the child. Having this in mind, the Idoma language is endangered and there is the need to do something urgently to prevent it from dying. In view of this, Idoma parents are encouraged to speak the language to their children at home as it will not affect their acquisition of other languages of the environment, or English language which is taught at schools.
Psycholinguists have claimed that language acquisition in the normal child without linguistic pathology begins from 5and 9 months of age and ends at 10 and 11 years of age. Therefore, a normal child who is exposed to one or more than one language during these periods can pick the linguistic data of the various languages simultaneously and without difficulty, because the mind of the child is naturally programmed for that purpose. To think that the child who speaks Idoma at early age will not be able to speak English or other languages at the same time is linguistically unverifiable and should be discouraged.
It is surprising that today, social events in Idoma land, such as marriage ceremonies, naming ceremonies, and traditional events such as coronation of chiefs are moderated mostly in English language with a bit of code mixing with Idoma language. This is gradually affecting the speaking of Idoma and its cultural values. Once the language is lost, the culture is also lost because language is the medium for conveying the culture of a group of people from the adults to the younger ones.
In many ways, civilisation and technological advancement have affected the speaking of Idoma language. For instance, many of the current generation of Idoma parents no longer speak the language to their children at home. With family as the first agent of socialisation, parents are the chief custodians of the mother language and the task of every parent is to speak it to their children. Failure of the parents to speak their first language to the child will cut the child away from the cultural identity of the parents and the entire language users.
Similarly, the advent of social media has greatly hampered the speaking of Idoma language among the younger generation. Most children who never acquire the language of the environment either for the failure of parents to speak it to them or lack of exposure to the native speakers will have no other means of acquiring it, except they have to be taught how to speak such language. Conversely, the language of the social media has become the language of most children in the present day Idoma land. Today, most Idoma teenagers struggle to speak Idoma and they cannot articulate themselves properly using the language during social interactions and formal discourse, because they have missed the decorum for achieving this all-important aspect of a speech community during their early years.
As the world marks this day as International Mother Language Day, it should be borne in mind that our language is our means of identity. It can be used to achieve our socio-political and economic goals in the multilingual country of Nigeria. It is the medium of our thoughts, dreams, attitudes, traditions, customs and value system in general. These can only be achieved when Idoma language is spoken and transmitted from one generation to another.
Going forward, the International Mother Language Day reminds us that our mother language is paramount in teaching cultural diversity to the child. Having this in mind, the Idoma language is endangered and there is the need to do something urgently to prevent it from dying. In view of this, Idoma parents are encouraged to speak the language to their children at home as it will not affect their acquisition of other languages of the environment, or English language which is taught at schools.
The Idoma Area Traditional Council of Chiefs (IATCC) should rise up to her responsibility of upholding the culture of Idoma race and design a programme that can revive and return the teaching and learning of Idoma language in primary schools. Closely related to this is that language researchers, teachers, adult native speakers, religious leaders, opinion leaders and traditional rulers should be mobilized and recruited to develop and build on the existing primers in Idoma in order to enhance the teaching and learning of the language.
The Department of English/Idoma Language at the College of Education, Oju, as well as the Department of Languages, Faculty of Education, Benue State University, Makurdi, should ensure that students on teaching practice are sent to the various primary schools across Idoma land to teach the language to the school pupils. The Benue state government in collaboration with the state Ministry of Education should encourage the training of teachers in the local languages and as well motivate them to embark on language documentations and teaching at schools.
As the world marks this day as International Mother Language Day, it should be borne in mind that our language is our means of identity. It can be used to achieve our socio-political and economic goals in the multilingual country of Nigeria. It is the medium of our thoughts, dreams, attitudes, traditions, customs and value system in general. These can only be achieved when Idoma language is spoken and transmitted from one generation to another.
Owoicho is a linguist and writes from the Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages, University of Ilorin. He can be reached on: Whatsapp: 08073524949; E-mail: owoichoalleh@gmail.com
