Business Post Contributor
By Nneka Okumazie
The worth of any language is also the amount of original knowledge in that language that is of importance and great interest to others, requiring them to seek translations from that language. Communication is an important use of language, but it is basic in terms of what a language is worth.
English was not worth as much as it is now centuries ago when knowledge was spread across many other languages, mostly European. Those who spoke English sought translations to English; others had to learn those languages to access the knowledge in them.
There are many countries in the world where all the education their citizens get is available in their language. This can be categorized as inputs. Most of those countries may not be producing enough knowledge locally, which would require a lot of interest in seeking out what is in their language.
A language with a rising profile in recent years seems to be Mandarin, where their people just don’t learn in it but can produce enough knowledge in it, which outsiders seek for various reasons. Trade can also make a language worth much, as well as dynamic population and territories.
Some countries in Africa have been able to achieve education in their languages but produce little, if anything, in it that is relevant enough for the outside world to seek. Other African countries learn and produce stuff in their colonial languages, making their languages relevant only for local communication, where alternatives are abundant.
Aside from widely available digital translation, reducing efforts to find what might be in a language, African languages may not have much value since there is not much within them that others want.
Some often insist on their language, or try to make their children learn, at home or abroad, or speak the language to themselves to prevent a non-speaker in a group from understanding; all these are limited forms of importance in what excellence would have made for African languages.
Some countries in Africa who speak French, Portuguese or the only Spanish-speaking country may have tethered to a sunken ship, at least in terms of languages. Those languages are no longer the centre for the pace of knowledge. Producing less than relevant knowledge in less than relevant languages, as Africans, may already be a 2-way fuel leakage even before taking off.
Africa should have a lot of hope in many things, but the people of Africa seem to be concerned about things that change nothing. African culture, languages, traditions, communities and things that are African should be immensely valuable, but the sorry-rate work, low attitude, and very useless achievement like building a house or buying a car makes many things in Africa appear totally insignificant to others, including themselves, as a collective.
[Genesis 11:2, And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.]
