They would not Dance

A ma dupe, they would not dance
To this, our teaching rhyme
And see how the poet has been taken
For one funny unbusy clown

If the earth is pitched with social maladies
Must the poet keep silent
To the rising sun of a dwindling sanity?

TACKLING AFRICA'S CHALLENGE OF INDIGENOUS TECHNOLOGY

Given that technologically advanced countries of the world are ready to end their bilateral trade with African countries, what would become of countries on the continent of Africa which depend so much on European countries for their various technologies? I just pray that such doesn't happen because Africa would be empty of meaningful technologies. The reason simply is that most of the technologies we use are imported from non-African countries. The fact, simply, is that Africa doesn't exist when it comes to world technology. It has been widely claimed by scholars that Africa is a consumer not a producer of technology.

It usually dampens my spirit when I reflect on the fact that there is no meaningful, sophisticated, well developed and internationally acknowledged technology which I can point at and say: ‘my fellow African man created this on this same continent of Africa using materials from this same continent.’ How do we then get out of this international shame? What  do we do to develop our own technologies on this continent? People have suggested various measures which governments in African countries could take to enhance the development of our own indigenous technologies. Some people have accused governments of not showing interest in individuals who have shown their ability at inventing simple technologies. This people often say that such individuals are usually eventually discovered by the whites who usually seek to develop them to produce bigger things.

One of the basic problems that bedevil the continent of Africa is language. Language is the basis of our technological problem. The language of education in most African countries is a European language. This has created several other problems in that pupils do not properly understand what they are taught in a language which is not their mother tongue. Professor Babs Fafunwa in his popular research was able to prove that a child learns better when taught in his or her first language. His discoveries were considered by the Federal Government of Nigeria and were incorporated into the curriculum for primary school pupils. According to National Policy on Education (NPE), pupils should be instructed in the first three years of their education in their mother tongue or a language of wider coverage in their area of domicile.

            Though not enough as we may consider this policy, it is not effective especially in private schools where the teachers always instruct pupils in English language. In such schools pupils are even comported to communicate with one another in English; students who are cut speaking vernacular (as Nigerian indigenous languages are often referred to) are made to serve some punishment or pay a certain amount. Some public schools also involve themselves in this kind of ignoble practice. This is usually done in order to make sure that the pupils are able to speak English fluently and thereby increase their patronage.

No human society is an island onto itself. Every society necessarily needs to borrow ideas from another society to make meaningful developments. Africa needs to borrow ideas from other continent to develop its own independent technology. There are so many foreign ideas which we need to borrow. Most of these ideas are already what are included in the courses done in schools. We learn them but they are still not part of us. The reason is that we do not learn them directly through our first language; we learn them through a foreign tongue. Most students do not understand abstract ideas explained to them by teachers in school. They only cram them to pass their exams and this is the reason why they cannot use the knowledge to produce any meaningful thing. The ideas of how to develop meaningful technologies on our own are with us on this continent but we have not yet adapted them.

How do we adapt the ideas in order that they become part of us? How do we do it that students understand the ideas and are able to, through them, invent meaningful technologies? How do we do it that the ideas are genuinely incorporated into our various cultures? How do we do it that we are able to blend foreign ideas with ours that we may begin to create beautiful things? The road to this end is language. These scientific foreign ideas have to be made available in our various African languages. This however would generate another kind of question: can African languages express scientific ideas?

Many people have argued that African languages cannot express scientific ideas, claiming that the majority of the ideas are not found in Africa. These people often claim that most of the terms used in the sciences do not have equivalents in African languages. To me, as a student of language, this argument does not hold water. First, ideas do not need to be found in a society before they become part of it. Second, words of a language do not need to have equivalents in another language before they become part of it. Words like ‘algebra’, ‘alcohol’(both from Arabic) ,  ‘afara’ , ‘agogo’ and ‘fufu’ (from Yoruba) were not part of the English language before but they have now been adapted and incorporated into the English culture.

All of the terms used in the sciences could be made to have equivalents in African languages, if the continent is fully ready for this daunting challenge. It has been proven in linguistics that there is no one-to-one correspondence between language and what it expresses. If this is true then we can use any word to refer to anything. So, the ideas that African languages do not possess equivalent scientific terms in English should be disregarded and discouraged totally.

To make science available in African languages, both the African governments and African people, especially academic experts have crucial roles to play. Lecturers in tertiary institutions especially those in language should focus their research in this area. Since ninety percent of their job is finding solutions to human problems, the researcher lecturers in our various tertiary institutions should rise up to this challenge and find lasting solution to it. Also, African governments should sponsor endeavours in this regard and encourage scholars who are willing to champion this course. The governments should also make necessary efforts to make every student learn their indigenous language at every level of education. While the policy by the Nigerian government that every child should be instructed in his or her own mother tongue in their first three years of education is commendable, there is more to do. African languages should be included in the curriculum of secondary school pupils. Every student in tertiary institutions in Africa should be made to go through at least a course in indigenous language of choice before they graduate.

Africa’s technological challenge could be solved from several points of view but language remains an essential factor to solving it. Only when scientific ideas become an effectively adapted part of our culture can we begin to make progress in indigenous technology.

OLE AFAJO

In a marsh
You see a dead
A dead buffalo
You near harmed
Harmed with knife
You think his death
Death brought by chance
Chance of droning?

You refuse to strike the tree
Refuse to tap the palm
You raise your mouth
High and wide to the sky
As though to make a dam
A dam of wine flow in your stinking mouth
Who told you wine flow free
Flow free from the palm?

When your colleagues are all married
Married to the library
You are there doing, doing your doing Facebooking, peppersoupinng,
nightclubbing, bigboying
And you open your palms
To reap all the As
Do As come as leafs to the tree?
Labour, not wish, will make
Make you pot a river
Where meats and fish flow.

TO YOU POETS

To you poets
Belongs the world
As sword to a knight.
When poetry sings,
Figures shall dance.
When the muse shoots
A canister of melodious syllables,
Hearts shall submit
As sand to the rain.
Proverbs be the wheel of words
As cars to the human world
When the wheels wheel
Nigeria becomes London in 0 hours
As Lagos Ibadan in fleeting minutes.

Proverbs be the wheel of words
When a word is lost on the palate
Set a proverb out as a dog
To search and make out the meaning
The meaning of the vanished word.

TO YOU POETS

DEFINING LANGUAGE

DEFINING LANGUAGE
INTRODUCTION
Several scholars have made efforts to define language and a lot of definitions have been given to language over time. This paper is yet another attempt aimed at defining language. It should be stated right from this point that the mission of this piece is finding a way of saying what language really is before connecting it to what it is used to achieve-communication. This paper believes that there is a clear distinction between language and communication and that the two concepts overlap such that an attempt to pin them down to separate independent entities may prove unrealistic. It should also be said that this paper holds that language is a means whose end is communication and that in defining language, what language is should be stated first before connecting it to what its existence is primarily for. It is yet important to include it here that language is seen as encompassing all forms of languages apart from human languages as these other languages may interest scholars like semiotist, zoosemisiotist, etc.
This paper has been written not to debunk previous definitions given to language but to review those definitions and find a common-man way of defining language. As it must have been clear from the foregoing, the paper does not foreclose the fact that the sole purpose of language is communication. It only believes that language on the one hand is a distinctive entity and a means while communication on the other hand is also a distinctive entity but the end and that the former, as a means, is capable of being defined alone without mentioning its end-the latter.
To put all these in a summarized whole, this paper sees language as a distinctive entity capable of being defined alone but whose very existence is dependent on communication and this is the reason why we can refer to language as code without even making mention of communication.
2.0 LANGUAGE AS ALREADY DEFINED
Language is usually defined as a non-instinctive system of communication which employs arbitrary and conventional symbols that are in accordance with laid down set of rules used for human communication. But a more critical look will reveal that there is more to say of language than being the system of an entity-communication. Below given are some definitions from various scholars and dictionaries:
“Language is a system of communication in speech and writing that is used by people of a country
– Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.
“Language is human speech, a variety of speech or body of words and idioms especially that of a people; a mode of expression; any manner of expressing thought”
-Chambers Everyday Dictionary
“Language as a matter of common knowledge is the medium of communication through which we express our emotions, ideas feelings and though to our fellow people.”
-JD Murthy, 2007.
“Language is a set of specific universal principles which are intrinsic properties of the human mind and form parts of our genetic endowment. Language can thus be defined as an arbitrary system of conventional (spoken or written) symbols by means of which human beings as members of a social group communicate.
-Chomsky, 1957
What follows is the review of the afore-stated definitions. To start with, everything that oxford advanced learner’s Dictionary says of language is apt and true of it but a question which would be asked based on the definition is: “we understand that language is a system but can we describe the system before saying what the system is used to achieve-communication? On the second definition by chambers Everyday Dictionary, the question which demands an answer is: though to refer to language as human speech, a variety of speech, a body of words and idioms is not ineffective, what can we say this ‘mode’ or ‘manner’ of communication is? On Murthy’s definition, the simple question is: what is the nature of that medium through which communication takes place? Chomsky’s definition of language too is an interesting one as it also recognizes language as a system which is arbitrary and contains conventional symbols which could be written or spoken and with which humans communicate. But the question that interests us in Chomsky’s definition is: what takes place in this arbitrary ‘system’?
As it must have been seen from all the definitions of language quoted above, there is one basic thing that cuts through all the definitions and this is that language is referred to as a means, a manner, system, mode or a medium through which an effect (communication) is achieved. It is to describe what this mode, system, manner, means or medium is that this paper has been written.
3.0 WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
It should have been noticed right from the beginning of this piece that language is a means to an end and that that end is communication. Not only the human language constitutes what can be regarded as language. We have animal language (studied in zoo semiotics), sign language etc. But, what is of interest in this paper is the human language. Language can thus be defined as the representation of the ideas contained in world.
We have said that language is the representation of the world. Does it stop there? No, we have to know how the representation is done. People represent (or describe) the world using language in relation to how other people represent the same world and this is why the representation or symbolization of the world is termed conventional. When people represent the world or put the world into symbols there is usually no connection between the world (i.e. ideas and entities contained in the world) and its photocopy and that is the reason linguists often say that the carbon copy of the world (language) is arbitrary. This arbitrariness is such that whatever exists or does not exist by existing in the world can be represented in language without any resemblance between the representation (language) and the represented (the world) once all the people using such representation have accepted the usage and make use of it.
This representation of the world is, according to Chomsky, "intrinsic property of the human mind and form parts of our genetic endowment." This means that the ability to put the ideas contained in the world into a form of representation is part of the natural abilities of the human beings but that representation is dependant on where one lives or functions.
3.1 HOW LANGUAGE REPRESENTS THE WORLD
To further prove how language represents the world we can say that whatever exists in the world already has one part of the language to represent it. For instance if there is an object at a particular place having some specific features, the part of the language to represent it will be noun while the part to be used in making that object specific (or in describing it) will be adjective if a boy should lift his legs into the air and immediately returns them back to the ground, what has taken place is an action and to represent such development a part of the language to do that is the verb. We can even go to the extent of describing how that action is done using adverb (another part of language).
To further explicate this in a clear term, the following unit may suffice.
3.1. PARTS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE
Noun: This represents entities both animate and inanimate, physical and abstract, real an unreal that are contained in the world.
Verb: This represents actions that have been done, that are being done, and that will be done and the idea that an attribute is being given to an entity. “Is” for instance, in ‘The boy is tall’ represents the idea that the attribute “tall” is being given to the entity ‘The boy.” Verbs also represent states of mind; like to think, to hear, etc as they also represent the mood with which an action is done, was done or will be done. The latter is usually referred to by the linguists as modality.
Pronouns; pronouns represent entities when the entities’ names are avoided.
Adjective: Adjectives represent the attributes that make ideas or constituents of the world specific. When we want to make a representation specific, adjectives are one of the parts of the language we use to make the entity specific such that “the small house” would be different from “ the big house” as would “the white car” from “the yellow car”. In a nutshell, we use adjectives to achieve distinction among entities of the world.
Adverb: Adverbs represent where, how, why, when for what purpose, in what contrast, by what exception, in what manner, etc an action is done. Adverbs like adjectives are also a part of the language which we use to achieve specification but in this regard,
in relation to verbs, in a way that “walking gently” would be different from “walking quickly”.
Conjunction: This represents the idea that what is being talked about in the world is more than one.
Preposition: This represents the direction, the place, etc where or by which an entity or idea is or is functioning.
Interjection: represents human emotions.
The articles: represent the idea whether the entity or entities mentioned is/are old (given) or new.
Whatever exists in the world, be it an entity (abstract or physical, animate or inanimate), an action, an attribute, etc. can be represented using language using any of the above language recourses. Thus, everything of the world represented in language falls within the scope of the elements of language fore-stated.
4.0 LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
We have already looked at what language is in the foregoing. We identified it to be the representation of the world or a carbon copy of the world. But does the definition stop there? Before we make any attempt to explicate further on our simple definition of language a look at the meaning of communication should be relevant especially at this juncture Oxford Advanced Leaner’s Dictionary describes communication to be:
“the activity or process of expressing ideas and
feelings or of giving people information.
From the above definition, we notice that communication implies that there are two entities which are sharing some kind of information or expression. It is interesting note that the information referred to in the definition is actually a representation of the world. In other words, communication is a way or medium of passing across a form of representation of the world to another person. For instance if one wants to talk about a place in Lagos, it is not possible that one carries the place as a whole and shows it to the interlocutor. The need therefore arise to make a photocopy of the place and communicate it to another person. This photocopy is such that language resources are manipulated in a way to represent an aspect of the world and use it for communication. In this connection therefore, language arises as a result of the need to communicate and it is clear that the primary purpose of language is to serve as a means of communication.
Based on the forgoing, we can therefore have a re-look on the definition that language is the representation of the world. Thus, language can be defined as the representation of the world made specifically for human communication. Metaphorically, it is the carbon copy of the world a photocopy of the world whose very existence is solely to serve communication. This representation is unanimously agreed upon by a group of people who share the same code (representation) and is continually being used by them.
CONCLUSION
From all that has been said, we can infer that the paper is working on a way of defining language in a simple way and has been able to give one which is not resistant of criticism. It should be included in this concluding part that the argument put forward in the paper has been subjected to several criticisms majority of which came from students of English in Obafemi Awolowo University. A conclusion would be made here of the entire paper with the following two lines:
“when language represents
Communication finds its place”. DEFINING LANGUAGE
INTRODUCTION
Several scholars have made efforts to define language and a lot of definitions have been given to language over time. This paper is yet another attempt aimed at defining language. It should be stated right from this point that the mission of this piece is finding a way of saying what language really is before connecting it to what it is used to achieve-communication. This paper believes that there is a clear distinction between language and communication and that the two concepts overlap such that an attempt to pin them down to separate independent entities may prove unrealistic. It should also be said that this paper holds that language is a means whose end is communication and that in defining language, what language is should be stated first before connecting it to what its existence is primarily for. It is yet important to include it here that language is seen as encompassing all forms of languages apart from human languages as these other languages may interest scholars like semiotist, zoosemisiotist, etc.
This paper has been written not to debunk previous definitions given to language but to review those definitions and find a common-man way of defining language. As it must have been clear from the foregoing, the paper does not foreclose the fact that the sole purpose of language is communication. It only believes that language on the one hand is a distinctive entity and a means while communication on the other hand is also a distinctive entity but the end and that the former, as a means, is capable of being defined alone without mentioning its end-the latter.
To put all these in a summarized whole, this paper sees language as a distinctive entity capable of being defined alone but whose very existence is dependent on communication and this is the reason why we can refer to language as code without even making mention of communication.
2.0 LANGUAGE AS ALREADY DEFINED
Language is usually defined as a non-instinctive system of communication which employs arbitrary and conventional symbols that are in accordance with laid down set of rules used for human communication. But a more critical look will reveal that there is more to say of language than being the system of an entity-communication. Below given are some definitions from various scholars and dictionaries:
“Language is a system of communication in speech and writing that is used by people of a country
– Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.
“Language is human speech, a variety of speech or body of words and idioms especially that of a people; a mode of expression; any manner of expressing thought”
-Chambers Everyday Dictionary
“Language as a matter of common knowledge is the medium of communication through which we express our emotions, ideas feelings and though to our fellow people.”
-JD Murthy, 2007.
“Language is a set of specific universal principles which are intrinsic properties of the human mind and form parts of our genetic endowment. Language can thus be defined as an arbitrary system of conventional (spoken or written) symbols by means of which human beings as members of a social group communicate.
-Chomsky, 1957
What follows is the review of the afore-stated definitions. To start with, everything that oxford advanced learner’s Dictionary says of language is apt and true of it but a question which would be asked based on the definition is: “we understand that language is a system but can we describe the system before saying what the system is used to achieve-communication? On the second definition by chambers Everyday Dictionary, the question which demands an answer is: though to refer to language as human speech, a variety of speech, a body of words and idioms is not ineffective, what can we say this ‘mode’ or ‘manner’ of communication is? On Murthy’s definition, the simple question is: what is the nature of that medium through which communication takes place? Chomsky’s definition of language too is an interesting one as it also recognizes language as a system which is arbitrary and contains conventional symbols which could be written or spoken and with which humans communicate. But the question that interests us in Chomsky’s definition is: what takes place in this arbitrary ‘system’?
As it must have been seen from all the definitions of language quoted above, there is one basic thing that cuts through all the definitions and this is that language is referred to as a means, a manner, system, mode or a medium through which an effect (communication) is achieved. It is to describe what this mode, system, manner, means or medium is that this paper has been written.
3.0 WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
It should have been noticed right from the beginning of this piece that language is a means to an end and that that end is communication. Not only the human language constitutes what can be regarded as language. We have animal language (studied in zoo semiotics), sign language etc. But, what is of interest in this paper is the human language. Language can thus be defined as the representation of the ideas contained in world.
We have said that language is the representation of the world. Does it stop there? No, we have to know how the representation is done. People represent (or describe) the world using language in relation to how other people represent the same world and this is why the representation or symbolization of the world is termed conventional. When people represent the world or put the world into symbols there is usually no connection between the world (i.e. ideas and entities contained in the world) and its photocopy and that is the reason linguists often say that the carbon copy of the world (language) is arbitrary. This arbitrariness is such that whatever exists or does not exist by existing in the world can be represented in language without any resemblance between the representation (language) and the represented (the world) once all the people using such representation have accepted the usage and make use of it.
This representation of the world is, according to Chomsky, "intrinsic property of the human mind and form parts of our genetic endowment." This means that the ability to put the ideas contained in the world into a form of representation is part of the natural abilities of the human beings but that representation is dependant on where one lives or functions.
3.1 HOW LANGUAGE REPRESENTS THE WORLD
To further prove how language represents the world we can say that whatever exists in the world already has one part of the language to represent it. For instance if there is an object at a particular place having some specific features, the part of the language to represent it will be noun while the part to be used in making that object specific (or in describing it) will be adjective if a boy should lift his legs into the air and immediately returns them back to the ground, what has taken place is an action and to represent such development a part of the language to do that is the verb. We can even go to the extent of describing how that action is done using adverb (another part of language).
To further explicate this in a clear term, the following unit may suffice.
3.1. PARTS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE
Noun: This represents entities both animate and inanimate, physical and abstract, real an unreal that are contained in the world.
Verb: This represents actions that have been done, that are being done, and that will be done and the idea that an attribute is being given to an entity. “Is” for instance, in ‘The boy is tall’ represents the idea that the attribute “tall” is being given to the entity ‘The boy.” Verbs also represent states of mind; like to think, to hear, etc as they also represent the mood with which an action is done, was done or will be done. The latter is usually referred to by the linguists as modality.
Pronouns; pronouns represent entities when the entities’ names are avoided.
Adjective: Adjectives represent the attributes that make ideas or constituents of the world specific. When we want to make a representation specific, adjectives are one of the parts of the language we use to make the entity specific such that “the small house” would be different from “ the big house” as would “the white car” from “the yellow car”. In a nutshell, we use adjectives to achieve distinction among entities of the world.
Adverb: Adverbs represent where, how, why, when for what purpose, in what contrast, by what exception, in what manner, etc an action is done. Adverbs like adjectives are also a part of the language which we use to achieve specification but in this regard,
in relation to verbs, in a way that “walking gently” would be different from “walking quickly”.
Conjunction: This represents the idea that what is being talked about in the world is more than one.
Preposition: This represents the direction, the place, etc where or by which an entity or idea is or is functioning.
Interjection: represents human emotions.
The articles: represent the idea whether the entity or entities mentioned is/are old (given) or new.
Whatever exists in the world, be it an entity (abstract or physical, animate or inanimate), an action, an attribute, etc. can be represented using language using any of the above language recourses. Thus, everything of the world represented in language falls within the scope of the elements of language fore-stated.
4.0 LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
We have already looked at what language is in the foregoing. We identified it to be the representation of the world or a carbon copy of the world. But does the definition stop there? Before we make any attempt to explicate further on our simple definition of language a look at the meaning of communication should be relevant especially at this juncture Oxford Advanced Leaner’s Dictionary describes communication to be:
“the activity or process of expressing ideas and
feelings or of giving people information.
From the above definition, we notice that communication implies that there are two entities which are sharing some kind of information or expression. It is interesting note that the information referred to in the definition is actually a representation of the world. In other words, communication is a way or medium of passing across a form of representation of the world to another person. For instance if one wants to talk about a place in Lagos, it is not possible that one carries the place as a whole and shows it to the interlocutor. The need therefore arise to make a photocopy of the place and communicate it to another person. This photocopy is such that language resources are manipulated in a way to represent an aspect of the world and use it for communication. In this connection therefore, language arises as a result of the need to communicate and it is clear that the primary purpose of language is to serve as a means of communication.
Based on the forgoing, we can therefore have a re-look on the definition that language is the representation of the world. Thus, language can be defined as the representation of the world made specifically for human communication. Metaphorically, it is the carbon copy of the world a photocopy of the world whose very existence is solely to serve communication. This representation is unanimously agreed upon by a group of people who share the same code (representation) and is continually being used by them.
CONCLUSION
From all that has been said, we can infer that the paper is working on a way of defining language in a simple way and has been able to give one which is not resistant of criticism. It should be included in this concluding part that the argument put forward in the paper has been subjected to several criticisms majority of which came from students of English in Obafemi Awolowo University. A conclusion would be made here of the entire paper with the following two lines:
“when language represents
Communication finds its place”.