Wise wòrds You are indeed a scholar in the serious use of that word. A true philosopher But I still insist the onerous responsibilityto exercise restraint fslls on the person who provoked and invited respinses by their posting.
The responders are in fact doing him a favour by their responses no matter in what form otherwise he would be engaged in a monologue. If he organizes debates in class as part of his teaching duties and one of his students produces his responses in this forum what would he say? It is a cardinal axiom of teaching that you can't teach what you don't know. It is not sufficient to say I no be gentleman. Fela was no professor..(even though he once came to our campus with staff logging dozens of tomes of nook on African culture to lecture us when all he was invited to do was play music!)
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: 'Adeshina Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: 26/11/2018 17:17 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Atiku and the Meaning of an "Orphan" in English
As far as i am concerned, any response that stoops to the level of insults and abuse, for those who claim to be intellectuals, reduces our worth. For those who responds to any posts with insults and those who retort with further insults, what is the essence of your education, and of scholarship? Is it impossible to tolerate opposing and alternative and alternate viewpoints? If i find a viewpoint execrable and indigestible, why not just spew it out and remain silent? If my viewpoint is lampooned, why not just keep silent or, at best, respond with the utmost respect. That is maturity. Do we know how many people read what we write? Do we know what we have become in the eyes of some others, silent and not silent, on this forum? Haba! So, Kperogi writes something and then you are almost certain what will follow will be insults and abuses. No wonder we have read about transforming this listserv into a purely Nigerian arena. So what if Kperogi decides to do a linguistic and etymological analysis of "orphan" and "orphanages"? Some of us learn from all these. And if we are put off, we simply shake our heads and delete (thank god for the delete button!). So what if Kperogi is a paid hack working for a particular political personage? He can do all these and we have no right to impugn his person, only his arguments. There is no ad hominem that that dignifies a scholar. Indeed, no scholar who feels so angry as to respond in kind to a perceived or real insult is also dignified. So, how does Kperogi feels after writing all the terrible things in response to an insult? How do you feel after sending it? Satisfied? Fulfilled? Smug?
I suspect that a true scholar would not be so riled as to insult or respond with insults. Mba! A true scholar learns from all sorts of posts, odious and pleasurable.
We all just keep damaging our intellectual worth when we fight naked and bloodied in the marketplace.
This is just from a small boy who knows nothing, and who keeps hoping to learn from the big masquerades on this platform.
Adeshina Afolayan, PhD
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan
+23480-3928-8429
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan
+23480-3928-8429
On Monday, November 26, 2018, 3:48:37 PM GMT+1, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:
Ibukola,
School of Communication & Media
First go learn basic English grammar. Maybe, just maybe, you will then earn a place to join this sort of conversation, which is clearly above your mental paygrade. If my 8-year-old son were to grade this farrago of irremediable nonsense you wrote, you would score an F. I couldn't even read past the first three paragraphs before I gave up. Ask your intellectual superiors to help you decipher my essay. You clearly have no clue what it's about. This knee-jerk twaddle you wrote is embarrassing. Nigeria's investment in your education is a total waste. You should be ashamed of yourself. If I remembers correctly, you say you're a lawyer. Hahaha! Na wa o.
Farooq
Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Journalism & Emerging MediaSchool of Communication & Media
Social Science Building
Room 5092 MD 2207
402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Twitter: @farooqkperog
Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 5:02 AM Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk2005@gmail.com> wrote:
The many Farooq Kperogis of Nigeria destroyed Nigeria with their worthless pseudo-intellectualism. America made it clear to the European Allied forces as a precondition for helping destroy Germany and the Axis forces that European powers will release their claim on their colonies and the attendant vice-like grip of Europe on the world. From 1945 when the second world war ended, the new world order architecture designed by many and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt added the Trusteeship Council to the United Nations system to take over colonies of defeated German and Axis forces in trust for the United Nations. In addition ALL European countries agreed to give up their colonies and grant them independence.
The African Germany colonies of Tangayika (held in trust by Great Britain), Burundi and Rwanda by Belgium, South West Africa (now Namibia) by South Africa, Kameroons shared between France and Great Britain (this is the root of the Ambazonian crisis there) and Togo went to France. In addition to the agitation for independence generally, these African trusteeship entities also had to be decolonised.
Before I digress too far, the colonial powers seeing that the decolonisation was imminent began a systematic programme of brain-washing of local independence agitators by dis-organizing them at home and offering them scholarships. They brought them to Europe, gave them dysfunctional education and brain-washed them thoroughly (have you ever wondered why most of African leaders collude with Europeans to loot African treasuries? This is the reason.) The Senegalese Léopold Sédar Senghor, Ivorien Félix Houphouët-Boigny Kenyan Jomo Kenyatta and the Old Guard were good examples. Many from Nigeria who went to study in UK belong to this class of early western educated but brain-washed people. They were programed to continue colonialism. They became the safe hands who built neo-colonialism. Some European countries managed this transition process of colonialism to neocolonialism very well while others botched the process leading to very long wars in North Africa against France, Guinea Bissau, Angola, Mozambique and a few other places against the erstwhile colonial overlords.
Farooq Kperogi continues in the tradition of these brainwashed neo-colonial intellectuals. Their sole purpose is to knowingly or unknowingly promote the interest of colonial masters. They wax lyrical with empty and worthless intellectual masturbation and calisthenics. Can you imagine that we have a Nigerian election coming in a few months that will determine the course of the future of 200 million Nigerians. On one side, we have a nationalistic and patriotic Muhammadu Buhari. In the last few years he blocked the neo-colonials from looting the Nigerian treasury and stashing the loot in Western Banks. On the other side we have Abubakar Atiku the agent of neo-colonialism and the arrow-head of previous neocolonialists who wants to take over power with the sole object of returning to continue looting the Nigerian treasury after 8 years with Olusegun Obasanjo and stashing the loot in Western banks.
The stark electoral choice we must make in a few months will determine whether Nigeria will survive as a country for Nigerians or will continue as a mere source of looted funds for Western countries. In the heat of this life and death choice for Nigeria, Farooq Kperogi fiddles while Rome burns and delights in self pleasure by writing a worthless self-praising piece on the connotations and denotations of the word "Orphan." As usual, he thinks he is smart in his silly attempt to promote a looter, neo-colonialist and tested incompetent who as Vice President under Olusegun Obasanjo looted Nigeria to the bone marrow for 8 years. Please tell me of what value is a primary 6, School certificate first second or third degrees if all they will be used for is to loot on a grander scale,
Farooq Kperogi's waste of time is this. The meaning of Orphan. A simple answer is set out below:
"orphan[awr-fuh n]AN ENGLISH NURSERY RHYME
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things that we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
- Anonymous (circa 1764)
--On Mon, 26 Nov 2018 at 00:20, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:
--Sunday, November 25, 2018
Atiku and the Meaning of an "Orphan" in English
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
In his pre-recorded initiatory presidential campaign speech on November 19, 2018, former Vice President and PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar described himself as having grown up an "orphan." "I started out as an orphan selling firewood on the streets of Jada in Adamawa, but God, through the Nigerian state, invested in me and here I am today," he said.
President Buhari's social media aide by the name of Lauretta Onochie led a chorus of Buhari supporters on Twitter to pooh-pooh Atiku's claim to orphanhood. She said Atiku wasn't an orphan because he didn't lose both parents. This ignited a frenzied social media conversation about the meaning of an orphan. Below is Onochie's tweet that set off the debate:
"Atiku cannot be trusted; I started life as an Orphan in Jada"-Abubakar Atiku (BIG FAT LIE)"ORPHAN-a child whose parents (Father and mother) are dead. In his book, MY LIFE (2013 pg 30) refers [sic]: Atiku said his mother died in 1984. This was when he was 38 years. He was old enough to buy mum a house.
"What's the point of this lie? To deceive Nigerians and get their sympathy? It's disrespectful and insulting to Nigerians for a candidate or anyone to lie to them.
"He is saying we are too gullible to find out the truth. No, we are not. President Buhari nor [sic] Vice President Osinbajo will never lie to Nigerians."
What this semantic contestation captures is a clash of socio-linguistic cultures. As I pointed out in my May 4, 2014 column titled "Q and A on Popular Nigerian English Expressions, Word Usage and Grammar," my first daughter had a similar argument with her teacher nearly seven years ago. I lost my wife to a car crash in June 2010 in Nigeria and brought my then 6-year-old first daughter to live with me here in the United States the same year.
One day in class, she told her teacher that she was an "orphan." Her teacher, who knew me, said my daughter couldn't possibly be an orphan since her father was alive. My daughter, who had become linguistically American but still culturally Nigerian, insisted that the death of her mother was sufficient to qualify her as an orphan. Their argument wasn't resolved, so she came home to ask me if she was wrong to call herself an orphan.
I told her she was right from the perspective of African cultures and UNICEF's classification of orphans, but that her teacher was right from the perspective of conventional English.
Different Cultural Significations of "Orphan"In many African—and other non-Western cultures— an orphan is understood as a child who has lost one or both parents before the age of maturity. In Islam, an orphan is a child who has lost only a father before the age of maturity. The usual Arabic word for an orphan is "yateem" (or al-yateem), which literally denotes "something that is singular and alone." But the word's canonical and connotative meaning in contemporary Arabic and in Islamic jurisprudence is, "a minor who has lost his or her father."
Nevertheless, other rarely used words exist in Arabic to denote an orphan: al-Lateem is a child who has lost both parents while al-'iji is a child who has lost only a mother. Note, however, that yateem is the word used in the Qur'an to refer to an orphan, which is why people who are socialized in Muslim cultures define and understand an orphan as someone whose father died before the age of puberty. Atiku is a Muslim who grew up in a Muslim cultural environment. There is no reason why he should use Western cultural lenses to describe himself.
Until I relocated to America, I too had no idea that in conventional English, an orphan is generally understood as a child who lost both parents. Curiously, the meaning of the word changes when it is applied to an animal: An animal is regarded as an orphan only if loses its mother, perhaps because animals have fathers only in a reproductive, but not in a biosocial, sense.
Note, though, that in English, an orphan can also be a child who has been abandoned by its living biological parents. That means almajirai (plural form of almajiri in Hausa) are invariably orphans since they don't get to enjoy the care of both parents who are usually alive.
It's also noteworthy that UNICEF, being an international organization that represents the interests of people from different cultures, recognizes the cultural clashes in the conception of orphanhood and seeks a fair sociolinguistic compromise. That is why it has three different types of orphans. UNICEF has a class of orphans its calls "maternal orphans." This category encapsulates children who lost only their mothers. It also classifies certain orphans as "paternal orphans," which refers to children who lost only their fathers. Then there are "double orphans," which refers to children who lost both parents. I think that's a good cultural compromise. By UNICEF's classification, Atiku was a paternal orphan.
Many contemporary English dictionaries are taking note of and reflecting this shift in the meaning of orphan. For instance, the Merriam Webster Dictionary now defines an orphan as "a child deprived by death of one or usually both parents." The Random House Unabridged Dictionary also defines an orphan as "a child who has lost both parents through death, or, less commonly, one parent." And Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged, a British English dictionary, defines it as, "a child, one or (more commonly) both of whose parents are dead."
So Atiku's use of "orphan" can be justified in contemporary, evolving English, but even more so in historical English, as I will show below.
Etymology of "Orphan"Orphan is derived from the Latin orphanus where it meant a "parentless child." But Latin also borrowed it from the Greek orphanos where it means, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "without parents, fatherless." Orphan, ultimately, is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root orbho, which means, according to etymologists, "bereft of father."
This clearly shows that loss of a father, not both parents, is at the core of the signification of the word from its very beginning. In fact, a survey of the earliest examples of the usage of the word in historical writings in English shows that it was used to mean only a child who lost a father. For instance, in Scian Dubh's 1868 book titled Ridgeway:An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada, we encounter this sentence: "At his birth, he was an orphan, his father having died a few weeks previously." This shows that in the 1800s, a child was regarded as an orphan only if it lost its father.
It must have been changes in social and cultural attitudes in the West that expanded and limited the meaning of "orphan" to a child who lost "both parents."
Motherless Babies' Home or Orphanage?A place where orphans are housed and cared for is called an orphanage in contemporary Standard English. It used to be called an "orphan house" until 1711. (Orphanage used to mean orphanhood, that is, the condition of being an orphan; the current meaning of the word started from about 1865).
Interestingly, orphanages are called "motherless babies' homes" in Nigerian—and perhaps West African—English. Does this suggest that our conception of orphanhood is changing from deprivation of a father through death to solely deprivation of a mother through death? Why are there not "parentless babies' homes"? Or, for that matter, "fatherless babies' homes"?
Related Articles:Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & MediaSocial Science BuildingRoom 5092 MD 2207402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
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