The subliminal message in Farooq's submission is clear: as long as we lean on the language of others to express our minds, we will continue to wallow in fake ego, self-pity, and/or self putdown. The truth is, we just can't get it right. Period! We are not intrinsically wired to use someone else's language to navigate our communication paths and not miss some steps or even the whole path, especially in the realm of phonetics and even in the overall language use. To paraphrase the rhetorical question of Paulo Freire, how can you name your own world in the words of others and expect it to be hitch-free? My big cousin (our family daddy) is probably one of the best users and writers of the English language on earth, in my subjective estimation. The nonagenarian is a sociolinguist and retired professor of English; but just listen to him speak the English language. His accent is so thick and I bet, an average first language and/or native user of the English language would almost want to use an interpreter to understand when he speaks. Yet, I can't imagine even an Oyinbo person writing better in English than he does. Folks like Professor Abiodun Adetugbo, a foremost dialectologist, would tell you that our dialects or even idiolects affect our articulations and/or dictions. I have seen Obasanjo make his presentations in Yoruba (in his beautiful Egba dialect) and you would have to love it! Like Obasanjo's Yoruba, if Buhari or even our polished friends (Professors Buba, Kperogi or the late Balewa) were to present in Hausa language (BTW, I know Kperogi's MT is Batonou), it would still most likely be better than in the English language.
All that is just the phonology; the language use is another thing altogether!
Look, friends, this North-South English usage dichotomy is tantamount to two captives fighting over who cleans the whip of their master the more. We need to snap out of it and put our linguistic house in order. If we are not careful, we, especially. generations after. ours, will fall victim of what the Yoruba call "Àgbóògbótán Ègùn", a concept well captured in what Professor Awoniyi referred to as being "members of two worlds, citizen of none!"
Michael O. Afoláyan
===
On Wednesday, March 25, 2020, 11:15:03 PM CDT, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:
This is not an issue to be touchy and self-conscious about. When Obasanjo was in power, northerners, especially Hausaphone northerners, also mocked southern Nigerian English accent. I've published letters in my now rested grammar column from readers who derided southern Nigerian accents. Here is an example published on January 20, 2007, which is archived on my blog:
"And one thing [about] the people of southern Nigeria is that their spoken English is not very good. However, they keep thinking that they are the best. [They are] very ignorant until they happen to be in the white man's land when they know [the truth]. A southerner here will pronounce 'mother' as 'murder' and 'occur' (correctly pronounced as something like 'occa') as 'occo,' 'doctor' (pronounced 'docta') as 'docto, and so on.
"On many occasions, you will see President Obasanjo addressing the English-speaking white people who most times resort to using translators fixed to their ears [rather] than listen to him directly. I really don't understand. What is the factor governing the difference in [pronunciation] between the North and South of Nigeria when it comes to English Language?"
In my response to the writer, I dispelled his assumptions and I pointed out that an accent is the unique, phonologically specific, culturally determined, and sometimes unconscious, way we orally express ourselves.
Pronunciation is only part of the story of an accent. You can have a perfect English pronunciation (in any case, there is no such thing as a "perfect" English pronunciation, which explains why pronunciation is not an ingredient of Standard English) and have the "wrong" accent, depending on where you are and who is listening to you.
As far as most non-Nigerians are concerned, interestingly, all Nigerians—whether they are southerners or northerners—have fairly the same national accent with only insignificant, barely perceptible variations. In fact, it's customary for Americans and Europeans to talk about not just a "Nigerian accent" but also an "African accent." Inattentive? Yes! But that's the reality.
Most non-Americans, for instance, also think there is a monolithic American accent, which is, in fact, indistinguishable from Canadian accent. But anyone who lives in America and pays attention knows there are wide regional variations in accents, and that the southern drawl tends to invite the most ridicule nationally.
There is no such thing as a person who has "no accent." As phonologists often remind us, "a person without an accent would be like a place without a climate."
Accents have been used historically to distinguish between in-group members and outsiders. For instance, the term "shibboleth," now understood in everyday speech to mean "a manner of speaking that is distinctive of a particular group of people," was used in ancient Israel to tell one tribe of Jews from the Ephraimites, who reputedly couldn't pronounce the word "shibboleth" because they didn't have the "sh" sound in their own Hebrew dialect.
School of Communication & Media
"And one thing [about] the people of southern Nigeria is that their spoken English is not very good. However, they keep thinking that they are the best. [They are] very ignorant until they happen to be in the white man's land when they know [the truth]. A southerner here will pronounce 'mother' as 'murder' and 'occur' (correctly pronounced as something like 'occa') as 'occo,' 'doctor' (pronounced 'docta') as 'docto, and so on.
"On many occasions, you will see President Obasanjo addressing the English-speaking white people who most times resort to using translators fixed to their ears [rather] than listen to him directly. I really don't understand. What is the factor governing the difference in [pronunciation] between the North and South of Nigeria when it comes to English Language?"
In my response to the writer, I dispelled his assumptions and I pointed out that an accent is the unique, phonologically specific, culturally determined, and sometimes unconscious, way we orally express ourselves.
Pronunciation is only part of the story of an accent. You can have a perfect English pronunciation (in any case, there is no such thing as a "perfect" English pronunciation, which explains why pronunciation is not an ingredient of Standard English) and have the "wrong" accent, depending on where you are and who is listening to you.
As far as most non-Nigerians are concerned, interestingly, all Nigerians—whether they are southerners or northerners—have fairly the same national accent with only insignificant, barely perceptible variations. In fact, it's customary for Americans and Europeans to talk about not just a "Nigerian accent" but also an "African accent." Inattentive? Yes! But that's the reality.
Most non-Americans, for instance, also think there is a monolithic American accent, which is, in fact, indistinguishable from Canadian accent. But anyone who lives in America and pays attention knows there are wide regional variations in accents, and that the southern drawl tends to invite the most ridicule nationally.
There is no such thing as a person who has "no accent." As phonologists often remind us, "a person without an accent would be like a place without a climate."
Accents have been used historically to distinguish between in-group members and outsiders. For instance, the term "shibboleth," now understood in everyday speech to mean "a manner of speaking that is distinctive of a particular group of people," was used in ancient Israel to tell one tribe of Jews from the Ephraimites, who reputedly couldn't pronounce the word "shibboleth" because they didn't have the "sh" sound in their own Hebrew dialect.
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: @farooqkperogi
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 Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 6:50 AM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
--Many private messages have been sent that Southerners are mocking Northerners over language and accents. And some have been posted with one going viral.
Haba! When Kperogi was talking about verbs and nouns, you all forget that he is not an Igbo man. I don't know that verbs and nouns now have colors.
Haba! When someone says a letter emanating from a state house, a paid media communicator with a degree, is badly written, what as being Kanuri or Hausa go to do with this?
Haba! Have you not heard Gowon speak? Or he speaks well because he is not a Hausaman? Do you not know of a man called "the golden voice of Africa?" Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria's first prime minister!
Haba! Let me show you the recorded Keynote Address by Malami Buba, my Fulani friend; or the writings of Aisha Bawa, my Fulani friend; or of Bunza, my Fulani friend; or Ashafa, my Kaduna friend; or Bishop Kukah, the Zangon-Kataf man. Are they not better than many of the so-called southerners?
Haba! Everything is not about resource control or federal character.
Haba! This nonsense must stop today.
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