LANGUAGE DIVERSITY IN OUR SCHOOL

Today is the International Mother Language Day, gather around, let us talk languages.

To see how we marked this date, please read to the end.

In Nigeria, and Africa at large, language is a depiction of identity and culture, therefore we encouraged all the members of our school community to come wearing headgears and beads only that depict their ethnicity.

This social experiment proved interesting, because our students were  excited to  see so many similarities in our individual cultural head-pieces despite the language diversity.

We know that language is a mode of human communication, and this could be spoken or written. Communication has evolved such that in order to understand one another, various countries have their lingua franca. A lingua franca language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different. It has been observed that the use of a lingua franca could pose a threat to indigenous languages spoken in a country, thereby causing the extinction of these languages. Therefore to ensure the continuity of our indigenous languages across generations, the INTERNATIONAL MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY which is today was used to have the language diversity discussion with our students. 

Various activities had been taken up by students to ensure that they were prepared for today. Students conducted research on their individual indigenous languages, and wrote poems and stories in their languages, and translated ancient proverbs. These presentations were made at the student gathering. 

 What languages are spoken around you? Look in your schools, shopping malls, neighbourhood and communal gatherings, how many languages can you identify?

Please share in the comments section below, we love hearing from you.