“ I woke up this morning, there were tears in my bed” ,
So begins a protest song about the slaying of George Jackson //
Soledad Brother, cut down in his prime of youth
on 21 August 1971 at San Quentin, California, United States
When is someone going to put together a compendium entitled
African and African American Martyrs ?
From high seriousness to something less:
Since the Google search for Big Grammar Nigerians pointed to one Patrick Obahiagbon as the primus inter pares, the veritable living incarnation & personification, if indeed not the founder of Nigerian Big Grammar, I thought it would be wise to visit the very foundations to take a closer look at what he has been saying, so that I myself would know what I’m talking about.
I am not disappointed. Here he is, as portrayed in these specimen speeches , listening to which ( no malapropisms) I have learned a few new big words and phrases…
Back in the day in the days of praise-singing and hero-worship in the Saro Republic, at a time when Berthan Macaulay was being valorised as a “legal brain”, simultaneously, as per widely circulated rumour Maitama Sule and Jaja Wachuku were enjoying quite a reputation as being the foremost among Nigerian Orators . Since then, at around the time when the introduction of Sharia Law in Zamfara state was being discussed throughout the Naija Federation, I was so impressed by the levels of learned and often heated debates and discussions, that I was compelled to take a closer look at GREAT AND HISTORICAL SPEECHES + Documents and since then Great Nigerian Speeches
Inexplicably, all of the Nigerian proselytisers that I have listened to so far, have always been quoting the Bible in English. I daresay in the aftermath of the New Testament translation into contemporary Swedish, I suppose that Bishop David Oyedepo ( my favourite) and the other spiritual grandchildren of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther must also be looking forward to a new translation of the New Testament into contemporary Yoruba and anticipating the impact such a translation would have on their missionary activities
On Saturday, 26 September 2026 at 10:43:14 UTC+2 Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
With regard to “Truth is stranger than fiction” I rest my case with “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Peoples’ Planet
Stockholm,
Sweden ( where we’ve just had an election)
Friday, 25th September, 2026
On the brighter side : Al Green : Look What You Done for Me
On the lighter side : Iranian Comedian Djalili : Nigerian Accents
Don Corleone et alia,
The idea that “In the beginning there was no word until Africans invented language and shared it with the rest of the world” must be a comforting thought that fulfils a deep psychological need in Don Agozino, bearing in mind the various competing claims being made aboutTamil being the oldest language in the world, about Sanskrit as the Language of the Gods, and of course, rabbinically speaking Lashon Hakodesh - the Holy Tongue - and therefrom arising practitioners such as Abraham Abulafia…
Nor should we be unmindful of Arabic - as the Language of the Quran
When the recent miracle of Hebrew (which relatively speaking had fallen into desuetude during the galut) was being resurrected as the national language of Israel in some cases the philologists had to research the etymology of certain words in Arabic…
The way that we see ourselves
and the way that others
see us,
self-critique,
remarkable
some of
our critical selves:
“The change in the day that makes
them rant and rave Black Power!
Black Power! And the change that
comes over them at night, as they
N.B: Let this always be our good starting point:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
As for me,
still black
now that I’m back
at my non-dystopian,
non-humanoid desktop
and knowing what
to do in freedom
(and peace
God forbid,
not concocting
any inane,
AI-aided
stories,
here are the relevant
links to my last post :
Esperanto translation of the Holy Quran
Taking it as for granted that
“The Apparel oft proclaims the man”
and due to the continuing effects of
the trauma known as colonialism
it should really come as no surprise
that highly, or not so highly educated,
dress-to-impress Big Grammar Nigerians 👍
for whom everything is a coronation or ojare damnation
whose main aim is usually to fancy-dress up
their already Majestic English in order to impress -
shock & awe dazzling form usually more important
than content, ceremoniously announcing the most innocent
of contentions in the gaudiest grab possible - but mostly
only succeeding in obfuscating even the most simple intentions,
and although you were not there, ye Bible Thumpers remember
that they sent a delegation to John the Baptiser to ask him,
“Are you the Messiah? Speak to us plainly “ - in other words,
NO BIG GRAMMAR!
Baba Sho’s village schoolmaster Adekunle
is a classical introduction of a lowly educated fool
attempting to empty the Shorter English Dictionary
all to comic effect actually…
I also take it as for granted that in a linguistically Igbo village the first word that the new born urchin gurgles, is “ Ma-Ma “ whilst the boy-urchin crows
“ Pa-Pa “ - two plosives - two syllables. Cornelius Ignoramus doesn’t know how many morphemes would be registered by the tax collector’s meter in Biko Agozion’s Word Bank, but in the highly or lowly educated language community in the dystopian, post-colonial entity we have ( always) the mostly self-appointed & anointed, chest-beating grammar police constables like Kperogi talking about
“infelicities” not to mention what the howlers he deems are featured in “Mangled Trumpian Grammar”
This is a uniquely peculiar phenomenon, particular to Nigeria and it needs to be examined by the indigenes both at home and in the diaspora .
It calls for critical self-examination.
Somewhere along the way, highfalutin corrections of language “infelicities" being committed by highly placed politicians and their wives can be misappropriated by some corrupt, God-fosaken critics - to the extent that Wole Soyinka was falsely accused of criticizing First Lady Patience Jonathan's English - as if those jerks don’t know that Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka is not that kind of guy / goy
For some people with temperament,
and here I’m thinking of Shakespeare's Caliban and cursing, this sort of thing could morph into other versions of the advanced word game known as “The Dozens”
and here I’m thinking of straight-shooting Fela Kuti, plain talking about that which he describes as a “wonderful material property" in Army Arrangement ( Part 2)
N.B. 2 specifically to Don Biko Agozino :
my “ Kperogiist thesis “ on Dogo Argentino
will not be Kperogistic in tone or texture,
hopefully, instead of any kind of wannabe trite &
arrogant, high Gradgrindian seriousness
it will be laced and informed with a sense
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