English & Ghanaweb II

Despite the shocking reaction the first part of this article provoked in discerning readers on the Ghanaweb forum, I don’t regret writing it; even though I wish hadn’t done it. It sounds like a paradox, right? Perhaps, what is paradoxical is the suggestion by an overwhelming majority of readers that we should be allowed to glorify in mediocrity and never aspire to improve on our standards of spoken and written English. The contention had been that English is not our language, so we should work with our Ghanaian local languages instead. As if Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing was really about nothing, nobody commented on the issue in Twi, Dagbani, Ga, Ewe, Dagarti or Kasin; they all wrote fluent English spiced with the usual invectives. What is worse, the same people who had insulted me for being so presumptuous to talk about standards had sought to correct the innumerable grammatical mistakes I had made in the article. A chap wrote: ‘‘Mr. Tawiah your English too is not good either. It needs a bit of tighten.’’ Ladies and gentlemen, at what point does it become possible in this information age for a fellow Ghanaian to say to another: wo maame t…? Should it ever make sense for a brother who is hiding behind cyber anonymity to insult the innocent father of another brother?

For obvious reasons, I had wanted to title this article: our heritage through Ghanaian English, but this is a sequel, so let’s proceed to discuss a few things under the title we agreed on the other day. I wasn’t part of the euphoria on March 6, 1957, but I have always wondered why Osagefo Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana’s independence from Britain in the English language. In his usual charismatic self, he yelled: ‘…Ghana, our beloved country is free forever.’ He admonished that the independence of Ghana was meaningless unless it was linked up to the total liberation of the African continent. He said this, too, in fluent English, for he was an orator. I had expected that if he found it customary to wear his Kente on that historic national occasion, he would have spoken some local language. Needless to say, among several other things, it was Nkrumah’s excellent command over the English language that endeared him to those UGCC pioneers who brought him to Ghana from London.

For a moment, let’s assume we have nothing to do with English, and ask ourselves how well we have used our local languages so far. We don’t have a national language, even though Twi could well be if we were to develop one. I don’t remember reading a Ghanaian newspaper written in Twi. If the editor of the state-owned Daily Graphic should decide to surprise everybody one day, by asking his reporters to write their stories in Twi, we would be shocked how many people in the Linguistics department of University of Ghana would bother to read a paragraph. Our national anthem is in English, and we don’t seem to care very much. Monsieur Hackman Owusu Agyemang recently suggested that a country’ national anthem is a good part of her identity, so we should change ours into Twi. Did anybody bother to remind the composer was of Yen ara ya saase ni that we would do with another one? May be, it would not have changed anything, in the same way that the fortunes of Ghana Airways would not have been any better if we had changed the name to Ghana Nframa, or Ghana Nframakwan. Our President addresses the nation in English. The business of parliament is conducted in English. English is the language of our civil and public services. Our Ghanaian films and soaps are in English. You would be excused when you mix up tenses in any local language; you are uneducated if you do the same in English. Needless to say, the English language is our official and national media of instruction.

The other day, I asked how many of us have seen a Twi dictionary before, and I didn’t get any encouraging answers. Well, I remember senior columnist Dr. Kwame Okoampah-Ahoofe Jr. commented that he owns one. I had also asked how many of us know what ‘kame to mpa so’ is. Agya Appiah, a Twi Master at Sunyani Secondary School asked his class the meaning of the sentence in an examination, and he was shocked to read how morally bankrupt his students had become. Many of us poured the reggae and raga versions of pure pornography on the teacher. Today, he is a Reverend Minister in Chiraa, Brong Ahafo, praying for the souls of his students. Apparently, Kame to mpa so is a light food that you would usually take before going to bed; it puts you to bed. It has nothing to do with sex, if you would excuse me.

Similarly, Owura Seth Nketiah had questioned the intrusion of the letters ‘C’ and ‘J’ into some Ghanaian names. Acheampong has a ‘C,’ so does Techiman. We have become used to Kojo, instead of Kwadwo. Why has Fordwoor borrowed a ‘J’ in Fordjour? The Twi Alphabet does recognize these letters. What about those who write the title-Junior (Jnr or Jr for short)-at the end of their names? Why don’t they write Kabraka or Kaakyire, or Abediakyere? Yet, a person called Yaw Danso Abeam Kakabo, Jnr, insists he hates English names, but he forgets that Junior is an English word. Meanwhile, his daughter has been named Chelsea Yvonne Danso Abeam. So Kwesi has assumed a linguistic transmogrification in Quesi. Some folks call themselves Prince and Princess, but they are not royals. In fact, they are worst than subjects. I have even seen a Ghanaian called Duke Paul, plus his surname-Amaka-Okyere. Folks in Ghana who have never had a western touch continue to wax LAFA (Locally acquired foreign accent) and FAFA (Foreign acquired foreign accent. Some do quite well with the RP (Received Pronunciation).

The person who suggested that we should neglect English, as the Japanese and the Chinese are doing, is probably not following attempts by the governments of these countries to necessarily acquire English as an important second language. Presently, thousands of British citizens are teaching English in these countries, including Taiwan. These countries have respected national languages, which are also their official languages. Their newspapers are written in their national languages, and those abroad have no difficulty accessing their country’s newspapers. Even now, talk is going on in Britain’s educational circles for Mandarin, the language of the Chinese, to be taught in English Schools. Yet, the Chinese are serious about learning English, such that a Chinese writer who only started learning English in 2003 when she immigrated to London, has been able to write a book in English and won a respected book prize. When was the last time you heard that a Ghanaian has won an international literary prize? The Chinese language is great, but she knows English is more or less the most important international lingua franca; it would reach a lot more people than Mandarin. In Japan, children and adults are eager to learn the English Language. Shouldn’t we bother?

Presently, I teach English as a foreign language in some London colleges, where I get to meet students from South Korea, Pakistan, China, Russia, Columbia, Japan etc. Even though these students want to learn the basics of the language for employment purposes and informal communication, they are very serious about learning and writing it properly. So, if a Ghanaian is happy to gloss over the mistakes we make in written and spoken English, when the language remains our official language, then God is no King in Israel.

Of course, not all of us are taking things for granted. Mr. Yaw Yeboah, a scholar in the USA, is very serious about maintaining good standards in written English. He noticed the usual flaws in the first part of this article and made some interesting suggestions. He thinks the Ghana Journalist Association should be Ghanaian Journalists Association, and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation should have been Ghanaian Broadcasting Corporation. His explanation was that the British equivalent, the BBC, is called British Broadcasting Corporation and not the Britain Broadcasting Corporation. According to him, there is the American Society of Oncologists, and not the America Society of Oncologists. Honestly, I doubt that he is right. These are issues of nomenclature; they may not necessarily follow the rules. Was he for example suggesting that the Voice of America should be Voice of American? We agree to disagree; is this not how it should be? He didn’t insult my mother for giving birth to an ugly man like me; he was decent.

Then again, is English the language of the people of Britain, America or Australia alone? The fact that we have done well to develop varieties of the language, such as Ghanaian English, American English, Nigerian English etc., should convince us that the language is an important communication tool that is necessary for our survival in the global world and even in our local domain. In the rather shameful situation that very few of us can write any Ghanaian language, we really do not have a choice but to superimpose a non- native language on our native tongue. That is not to say that our Ghanaian languages are not serving us well. Indeed, language has a strong bond with culture, and every language is adequate for the culture it expresses. But, we did not develop ours to take care of our official needs; we signed on to English, so we would need to live with it.

Another reader also commented that I have an inferiority complex for suggesting that the observation the American professor had made about our written English should be considered kind-heartedly. I thought I was being very nationalistic when I wrote that ours isn’t bad at all; for we know that some native English speakers do make some mistakes in written and spoken English. For instance, Mr. Yaw Yeboah wrote that former US vice-president Al Gore says ‘My wife and me,’ instead of ‘My wife and I.’ An English shop assistant asked me: ‘how is you?,’ and ‘was you there?’ is not uncommon. Bushisms is a book that contains the grammatical errors President George Bush has been making since he ascended the US presidency. How do we know that these may be wrong? It is because we have an idea of what the right constructions may be.

In all these however, I have resisted the temptation of judging what is right and what is wrong in the English language; for I will say it for the umpteenth time that I am a poor user of the language. Even so, I believe I have a responsibility to commend those who use it well and encourage others to acquire greater proficiency levels. How bad is that?

Benjamin Tawiah, Freelance,

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.