Re-Call for United Ghana with one language.

Let us go into the ways where languages are spread.

The oldest way in which languages are spread was through wars where the defeated were forced to learn the language of the conquerors. It was forbidden for the defeated, who were most probably made slaves, to speak their ethnic languages. Normal or daily communication was done in the master?s language. In the course of time intermarriages occur and the offspring naturally speak the language of the conquerors if they stay long enough to maintain their rule. However beautiful a language may be this kind of language acquisition never persists, because human nature resists all that is forced on him. A modern example is the Roman Empire and the Latin language. The Romans conquered almost all of Europe including Greece. Greece was better and older civilization than Rome and therefore the Latin language never took root in Greece, the Romans rather learnt from the Greece. All the other countries in Europe, who were less civilized than the Romans learned Latin, conducted their everyday affairs in Latin. In the course of time the Roman Empire deteriorated, retreated to Rome and the languages of Europe, including English, were revitalized. Another modern example is the Russian language, which never took root in Eastern Europe. The students hated it, it was never seriously learned.

Another way of spreading language is through trading. The British were great traders. While other civilizations based their livelihood through inland trading, the British developed uncountable sea or maritime trade routes, made contacts and therefore traded with other civilizations in their own tongue-the English language. Let us not go into detail of how these trade negotiations were made, most of which, of course, were not fairgoer essential point is that they bred in their partners the element of democracy, albeit democracy was not an English invention.

Choice may be counted as one of the ways a language spreads. Anyone who has ears and eyes for beauty and can appreciate beautiful languages may choose the French language. May be that is why it is spoken in diplomatic circles. The elected few, the elite and sophisticated learn it all over the world. Though the purity of a language may be safeguarded by the elite its acceptance is guaranteed by the masses however crudely they speak it. What is the trend in the world where the theme of a national language is broached at all? In the European Union all member countries have the right to have their documents translated into their ethnic tongues however small their population, in other words all member countries languages are official. In the USA where a big proportion of the population speaks Spanish, the Spanish language is about to be made official.

Now lets come to our indigenous waters. I have observed in Ghana that there is a sufficient amount of tolerance towards every ethnic group in the country. Our democracy is very, very young, we have many mountains to climb, too many problems to solve. Let us not ride the crest of a single electoral success to bring more problems and divisional decisions. We might not bear it and might fall into the mistakes of our neighbors. We have at present a working language and the most important step in our development is increasing the living standard of the population. Other countries envy us because we have peace in our land, we have a working language in which we can reach easily the scientific world without spending enormous riches and time in translations. The time is not ripe to tackle such a delicate topic.

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