My Island tongue.

Hello all, hope you have all been keeping well. It has been a hectic fortnight for me, I have finally made up mind now, I am going to move to Naija permanently, I will expound on this another time. Anyways, I have been tryna put some things in place to make that easier for me. Hopefully, I will have some things to post up on my blog after this weekend.

Now, I was reading Original Mgbeke's post about the fact that she cannot speak nor understand much Igbo. I must say I was very surprised, hers is one of few blogs that is so Nigerian, it makes me miss home. I guess one cannot reach too many conclusions from blogs.

I am torn on this, my siblings cannot speak Yoruba either, they understand it perfectly, even different dialects and accents, but because they do not say the words, they only hear them, they find it very hard to speak the language. I am the only one who can speak it well, (I might make an audio blog in Yoruba soon, lol) I guess that is because I was born in Naija and they were not. I am from Lagos Island and as much as my aunt, who raised me, wanted us to be proficient in English, she ensured that we could speak Yoruba and write it. My attachment to my culture cannot be divorced from my understanding of my language, I love the tones, the adages, the flexibility and how one word can mean many things depending on how one says it.

I must say, I enjoy speaking English, I was told my first words were in English, as a result of hours spent watching Sesame Street. I try to make sure I speak it well, proper tense, correct grammar and all that.

I think Nigerian cultures will die a slow death the way things are going, so many young Nigerians, even ones in Nigeria, will tell you that they cannot speak their mother tongue, I read about one of these actors, Tontoh Dike (she is Ikwere) saying she because she was raised in PH she cannot speak her mother tongue, only English and Pidgin. I mean! When I was coming up, my closest friends, Bassey and Chidi, would gladly speak Yoruba to us and then switch to their own mother tongue when they were with their families and speak English at the evening classes, those kids were lucky mehn. Imagine, there are some Lagosians that can speak FOUR languages, maybe not perfectly but still.

I just find it rather sad that so many Nigerians would rather speak someone else's language to their children and to make matters worse, they speak it imperfectly, when they can express themselves perfectly in their own language. We oughta take a leaf out of the Indians' book. I have never, ever, met an Indian person or an Asian person for that matter that cannot speak their own language, what is it about them? If one loses one's tongue, one's culture will die, that is just the long and short of it.

As a result of my childhood, I mixed with Nigerians from different parts of the country, I know some Igbo words (the cuss words obviously) and I have an interest in the culture. I must confess I do not know much about my Island culture, because it is different from wider Yoruba culture. It is a mixture of Bini and Yoruba and I do not know enough about it, I am trying to find out.

My latest thing is learning Pidgin, it is going well because I realised that it is not rigid in form, Lagos Pidgin is mostly Yoruba translated down to its most literal form, so 'you no (dey) hear word' (which in standard English would be, 'you do not listen) in Yoruba is 'O kĺn gbÒ rÒ' or 'no follow me do dat kin ting' is a literal translation from 'ma ba mi se iru kan be (yen). Okay, my Pidgin is not yet perfect but since I have realised this little fact, it is coming to me. I also spend a lot of time listening to Wazobia FM.

So, you can all imagine my joy about the music scene in Naija, they way the singers and rappers sprinkle their lyrics with their own language, I love it. 9ice, Raw, Da Grin.... these are artists that I dig for that reason. I know everyone digs M.I right now, not me though, I find dude too western.

Now that is over.... I got the cleaning bug and I decided to re-arrange my books, that is a picture of my favourite shelf.