The Beautiful Trajectory Of Language
My mother is a speaker of just one language, the distinctive tongue she taught me right from the cradle till I became an adult. This language was used in teaching me how to pronounce words in English Language – the lingua franca of my father’s land.
Mother employed the alphabets of Yoruba Language that she was versed in and used it as letter sounds to pronounce words in the English Language. This is one of the innovative ways my mother employed during my childhood days to pass knowledge to me as a child. Mother uses language in different forms, different formats and under different circumstances. There is a body language to warn you, a visual/eye language that you dare not ignore and then there is the spoken language, the height of it all which forces her to move the vocal cords in her throat.
Language is a blessing, for with language, man can always communicate effectively amongst themselves either through spoken words or through written forms.
The beauty of language is that it unites us in some form, creating a sense of identity and a tag among the users of a given language. It is a bridge to foster trust among humans but unfortunately, when language wants to break us, when it wants to rip us into pieces and create boundaries and barriers amongst us, especially in a heterogenous country like Nigeria, it would stop at no end till it causes a wildfire.
In my country, a Hausa man will concede totally to what his fellow Hausa man says before even listening to what either the Igbo man or the Yoruba man has to say.
He will stick to the bidding of his comrade in pain and gain before having a rethink about what the men from the other tribe had said. This principle applies to every other tribe in the country and the magic behind this absolute trust and faith goes beyond religion and culture, the power of language is also crucial to this principle.
This is why I agree that God knew what he was doing when he decided to scatter the language of the people of the earth while they were building the tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9).
He could foresee the future and he knew that the bond and unity which a common language would create among men would be too chaotic, so he had to confound their unique language as a form of restraint over man and to prove his sovereignty and supremacy all over the earth.
Language is a powerful tool and knowing how best to use it in our personal lives like my mother or to ignite gains in the corporate world is up to us.
