Redefine Sophistication, Own Your Identity

"Say Warteh", she said and the children echoed "Warteh."
She was teaching them to pronounce Water but pronounced it as "War-teh" and I smiled at her attempt at phonetics, teaching them to sound foreign.

As I walked past the classroom towards the Proprietor's office I thought of the parents who would have paid heavily to ensure their children got good education which today includes having your child taught to sound foreign.

It was during my service year.

I had gone to the school which was one of the biggest in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state at the time for a meeting with the school's Principal. As I walked past the classroom after the meeting I heard one of the children speaking, she spoke in a sing-song manner and sounded like a robot.

Many years after especially when I worked in Admin/Human Resources, I encountered many children and even adults who in an attempt to sound 'foreign' end up sounding like they are singing their words.
They speak in accents that are neither American, British, Scottish, Chinese nor Nigerian and sometimes sound stressed as they have to maintain the high pitch sing-song key.

Parents pay heavily for schools that boast of British, American, Norwegian, 'all non-Nigerian' curriculum but children still may not get quality education and sometimes indulge in exam malpractice from as early as Primary school.

I do not blame parents though, it is the resultant effect of colonialism and a system that has failed us. We want better and because we have lost faith in our own, better becomes 'foreign'.

Foreign accents, food, clothes, cultures, names etal are prized over local ones - this in my opinion is neo-colonialism and having a system like ours contributes in no small way to this neo-colonialism. 

I am not saying we shouldn't teach our children to speak well, I am saying we should teach them well. I am also not saying we shouldn't embrace other people's culture it just shouldn't be borne out of a feeling of inferiority.

I have heard parents boast that their children will only answer English names but they give them names with Hebrew, Greek, Latin or Italian origins instead - for them foreign connotes sophistication. It is also like when people in some faiths get baptized and adopt foreign names as their old names are termed 'pagan' - this in my opinion depicts an acceptance of inferiority and shows disdain for our culture.

As a Broadcast Journalist, I have had training in phonetics and will tell you that when words are pronounced correctly you actually sound different from the person who hasn't been trained. Different however doesn't equate unreal.

Teachers should strive to teach children to pronounce words correctly as speaking the English language well doesn't translate into sounding 'unreal'. We should teach children to speak English while retaining their Nigerian accents.

The aim should be correctness not fakeness.

We ought to teach children to be proud of their 'Nigerian' identity which includes our accent, names, food, culture etal.

We shouldn't call a French or Spanish accent sexy and then call Chijioke bush when he speaks in his Igbo accent - they have all been influenced by their environments.

We should first accept and then own and celebrate our identity instead of holding onto the one handed to us by colonial masters.

Let's redefine sexy and sophisticated, Nigerian is.