Nigeria: So, the US Envoy spoke Pidgin English? Big Deal!

Ambassador 101

Maybe we should sometimes wonder about what is expected of ambassadors. They are accredited representatives of their country to another country where normally they would live and interact with officials and people of that country.

Obviously, they should be expert diplomats in such a way that they should attempt to magnify the amity between countries whilst diminishing tensions between them, promoting understanding and friendships too.

There are many other roles of the ambassador, in explaining the policy of their countries clearly, being the chief executive of the consulate and its services for their fellow citizens abroad and host citizens who need to gain knowledge in many ways about the country the ambassador is from.

Soft skills of diplomacy - language

The ability to communicate is key, this is in the sophisticated use of language as well as in many cases they would be multilingual or dare I say polyglots. To expect them to speak the language of the court is probably not too much, if they speak the lingua franca, that is a matter of appreciated skill.

Enter, Ambassador James F. Entwistle, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria who has in his diplomatic career represented his country in Malaysia, Central African Republic, Thailand, Cambodia, Kenya, Cambodia, Cameroon, Niger, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and now Nigeria.

Pidgin English everywhere

Impressive and interesting, many of these places are former British colonies where English would have been spoken or a corruption of English known as Pidgin English of which there are many and the Nigerian Pidgin English now considered English-based creole language belongs to the broader group of West African Pidgin English languages.

If the producers at WaZoBia FM in Lagos had done very basic research on their guest, the Ambassador, they should have not been too surprised that given his wealth of experience in the subcontinent, he would have been quite able to connect a lot better than they expected.

In answering questions related to Nigerian democracy and US relations with Nigeria, he spoke quite fluently in Nigerian Pidgin English to which what he had to say was deafened by uncontrolled applause as the narrative that followed deviated from everything else he had to say. [PM News]

Noise obscures poise

Besides the commentary on the BBC, the management of WaZoBia FM should deign to conduct an orderly house with disciplined staff who can exercise a modicum of self-control and professionalism when pleasantly surprised. [BBC Audio]

The Ambassador indeed should be commended for effort and ability whilst at the same time we should not at the slightest titillation become a garrulous rabble in a circus act.

Much as we would have loved to listen to the recording of that interview, the sensational has gotten in the way of the substance of the meeting and that is rather unfortunate.

So, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria spoke Pidgin English? Big Deal! What did he say?

Childhood: Driving the languages of sacrifice

Unculu drives

Continuing those stories of childhood down memory lane where I left off weeks ago. My father had moved to Jos to take up a new appointment with the Amalgamated Tin Mines of Nigeria.

My uncle who we have for long lovingly referred to as Unculu had joined us in Kaduna and I remember the many evenings when my mother took him out to teach him how to drive - suffice it to say he did not pick up that skill for another 8 or so years.

By which time, he bought a car and my father was so scared that he was going to brag his way with a drive to his office hardly 3 kilometres away - though we could see the office from our house - followed him so closely, it was almost illegal. Well, Unculu had really learnt to drive in some secret place and was doing quite nicely, Thank you.

Gave up much for us

When we were in Kaduna, my parents had both worked at the Kaduna Polytechnic, I believe my mother was also a lecturer there before we moved to Jos, because when we returned to Kaduna a few years later, at least 2 of her old students visited us as my mother proudly announced that her erstwhile students are now doing very well with their careers.

One has to be very appreciative of our parents and the sacrifices they made to keep the family unit together as much as possible.

Having left a lecturer-ship in Kaduna, my mother ended up as a secondary school teacher, not to far from where I went to primary school and she majored in teaching Commerce.

It is commendable in some ways how women in matrimony have given up promising careers and prospects for their husbands and family - what saddens me is when you get to talk to them and you sometimes hear regret about what they would have wanted to do but never got to do.

The lesson we could learn from this is to be able to have some hindsight that is not too far away from where there is still time to go after your dream.

Speaking in tongues

The many years she had spent in the North before meeting my father came in so useful, she was just as indigenous as the natives that she was referred to as Hajiya - a Hausa woman who had been on Hajj - well; my mother is quite a devout Christian and over time has become a true Nigerian polyglot.

She speaks her native Yoruba, which is spoken in the South-West, then having lived in the North for 23 years in total, is tongue-perfect in Hausa and fully conversant with their customs, but I was quite pleasantly surprised that she had mastered an Igbo dialect spoken in Eastern Nigeria without having ever been there.

I am sorry to say, I do not have the mastery of learning languages as my mother, I am quite good with Yoruba and really improving my Hausa in a way, even though I am not in Nigeria - I have no grasp of Igbo at all.

When it comes to languages, I suppose I am more like my father, he took radio and instructor-taught classes of Hausa and never really made much progress with it. His early attempts at Pidgin English were funny to say the least - he always has had an impeccable command of English - when I was younger, I could remember the number of times I needed to check out a word in the dictionary then the whole thing sinks in.

Mother-tongue of something else

I suppose one interesting thing about languages is that my mother-tongue is not my mother's mother-tongue, mine is English, it being the first language I could speak and still is the language my parents use the most in communicating with me - Yoruba rarely creeps into our conversation.

As I reached 10 my parents tried to engage me more in learning Yoruba, my best score in secondary school where the language was compulsory for the first 3 years was 38%, this was after years of being forced to read the Psalms into water in Yoruba rather than the easier English.

Much as I try, my command of Dutch is still rudimentary, it is still quite Double-Dutch and each time I string together a sentence to the hearing of the Dutch, I might as well be a clown because it brings laughs of incredulity rather than understanding - what could I be getting wrong?