THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF THE YORUBA LANGUAGE
An essay in celebration of Dr. Tunde Adegbola's 60th. Birthday
Is the Yoruba language dying?
Of course, it is not. In spite of the precautionary message often sounded by Professor Awobuluyi in many of his lectures, we see that the language is being used more and more on radio and television. A weekly magazine, Alaroye, has succeeded in making a written variant of it accessible to the populace. Of course, on television, Africa magic, particularly, its Yoruba edition brings much of Yoruba culture to the people.
However, does it then mean that the professor is wrong in his assessment?
And again, no.
It would seem to me that in spite of the fact that more people are being satiated with the Yoruba language, the potentials of the language, beside its use in general communication among its speakers, have been perpetually limited to those comfort areas in which it has found itself in the last 100 years or more: religion and commerce. Although it is expanding in these areas due to the electronic media, and rapidly too, there has been a remarkable retrogression in other areas of human endeavor. In the education area, we no longer have children taught A:Aja; B: Bata; D:Doje;…; etc. In its place, and splattered on many billboards across Yoruba land, we now have preschools and kindergartens advertising A:Apple; B: Ball; C:Cake; …; etc. It is as if we are telling our children, from the very early age that the Yoruba language in inferior to the English language and children should not begin their early life's education by using it. This is in spite of all researches to the contrary.
Either we like to admit it or not, there must some things wrong with the language that make parents of young children want to stay away from exposing their children to it. The simple truth is that the language is not developed to handle many areas of educational activities and these parents know this for a fact. They know, either instinctively or empirically, that the language cannot, in its present form, be used to teach or explain scientific ideas; do mathematical computations beyond simple arithmetic; explore interstellar space; probe into the depths of the sea; etc. or even call large numbers with some reasonable measure of accuracy and speed. There are no science books written in the language. And even books that should appeal to kindergarteners and young children are hard to come by. Our universities and colleges of education treat our language with a large measure of benign neglect and no effective research is done on it or with it.
The language therefore has breadth but no depth. And this is what the professor is talking about. And by inference, we, the speakers of the language are losing much of the economic advantages derivable from it.
At this juncture, I must congratulate Dr. Tunde Adegbola, the chief executive officer of ALT-I for his indefatigable efforts to bring some measure of technological innovation into making our language easier to write and communicate with through the electronic media. Dr. Adegbola realizes that our language, more than gold and petroleum resources, is the single most important commodity we have as a people. More than just a simple means of communication, it is our most important identifier as one nation. In war or in peace, our language is what differentiates us from others. And when a Yoruba man, either within our territory or outside of it should ask another, 'Se Yoruba ni nyin?', if the answer is in the affirmative, it immediately conjures a unique bond that money cannot buy. It means we must treat each other differently from the way we treat others. It means we must obey that unseen but very palpable cultural affiliation that makes us Yoruba people.
Our language is our pathway to the transfer of knowledge from one generation to another. Losing our ability to communicate effectively with it means losing connectivity with our valuable past: the science, technology; medicine, philosophy, wisdom, literature, history; religion, etc. of our forebears. It means losing the economic advantages that derives from a language.
For these reasons, and many more, we must vigorously determine to develop our language to meet the realities of the electronic age. We must figure out a way to write faster, calculate easier, and communicate more effectively using our language.
Again, Dr. Adegbola, 'Happy 60th. Birthday.'
FAKINLEDE
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