Re: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Farooq, Funmi and Yona

On Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 6:05 PM, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:

I agree there might be disintegration if only ONE is adopted. If India can adopt 16 to hasten the journey toward its own lingua franca why cant Nigeria adopt its most widely spoken 3 and leave the rest to socio-economic forces in say the next 3 to 4 generations? Because the minorities dont like that?

You're probably saying that because you think your language (I'm guessing that you're Yoruba based on your name) would be among the three languages to be adopted. I'd take you seriously if you propose that we adopt minority languages from the north, the south and the central states as our national languages.

 The truth is that no people with even a scintilla language pride would sit idly and allow another language that doesn't give them any global or ideational advantages to be imposed on them. Why can't I study my own language if the idea behind learning in indigenous languages is to help people develop indigenous epistemologies? Any language other than my own language is just as foreign as English is, except that English connects me to a larger world and a vaster reservoir of knowledge. Why would any sane person give up the advantages of English proficiency for another foreign language that imposes needless and avoidable limitations on them? I wrote earlier that in my part of Kwara State, we resisted the curricular tyranny that required Nigerians to learn one of Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo. We refused to enroll for the classes and the teachers had to be taken elsewhere. This happened in several other places like Benue, Kogi, Bayelsa, Edo, etc. where people speak languages other than Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa. That's why the policy has been dropped. Your three-language national education policy proposal is dead on arrival in Nigeria. I don't speak any of the three major Nigerian languages, for instance, and I would resist anyone imposing them on me or my people this late in our evolution as a country.

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
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

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