Intelligent Nigerians, Home Languages
Unsurprisingly, the typical Nigerian believes Nigerians are amongst the most intelligent people in the world. The reasons for this belief are various. But none of them are provable by evidence. Some attribute this broad belief among Nigerians to certain factors.
One, the number of famous Nigerians that have attended top universities around the world. It is not hard to find out alumni numbers of top world universities by nationality. Nigeria will not be in the top 20. Two, too many attribute the claim of intelligence to sharp practice. Such as notoriety for advance fee fraud, also known as “419”. Three, others just enjoy the chest thumping.
I was utterly disgusted when a Nigerian born professor at a British university declared in a restaurant (in public) that “Nigerians are the most intelligent people in the world.” Well, because of their skilfulness at 419. I remain in disgust. This man is a great scholar. Some Nigerians attribute the belief of national-intelligence to “sense.” Sense we can best define as the “art of taking advantage of those who trust you the most.” Unfortunately, sense has not brought Nigeria great or enduring wealth, innovation, nor security in society among other things. It has increased hardship.
At best, sense almost always brings its user short-term narrow gains and long-term broad losses. Societies that function well entrench and coordinate themselves with interactions and relationships of trust, reciprocity, and loyalty, while sense cripples those virtues.
I am, therefore, one of those who do not think Nigerians are the most intelligent in the world. I have some reasons for this. First, is the simplest of things: colours. In most Nigerian languages there are only three colours in linguistic use. Red/yellow, black and white. I.e. “owaware”, “obiebi,” and “ofuafo” in Urhobo. And are “pupa,” “dudu.” and “fufu” in Yoruba.
Someone like Muhammad Ali (boxing and civil rights icon) the Urhobos and other Nigerians describe as red/yellow, black, and white often by the same person describing him within twenty words of each other depending on the contexts. So, may I ask what colour Muhammad Ali is in Nigeria languages?
Southern Nigerian before the mass deforestation and up to this day live besides abundant stretches of bush. Equatorial forest bush is green — trees, shrubs, grass, and fauna. Yet, there is no colour for green in Southern Nigerian languages.
Northern Nigeria has a generous helping of various shades of brown in its environment. But no Northern language has a word for the colour brown. The blue sky has always been there for Nigerians to see for thousands or millions of years, depending on whether you are a creationist or evolutionist. Yet, there is no common word in Nigerian languages for blue.
I remember as a child when my late mother used to import wrappers from Europe to sell in Nigeria. I saw how words failed fashionable women if they had to describe their choice fabric colours in Urhobo.
In fact, a common practice was for these women to look in the living room for a book, magazine, calendar, etc. for a colour patch to describe a colour they had in mind. My mother’s solution to the problem was to get hold of a graduated colour catalogue. My mother’s use of words like lilac, turquoise, mauve, ecru, maroon, and electric blue would itch her mostly educated customers as “grammar” or “showing off”.
I often wonder if failing to identify and classify omnipresent colour in one’s environment is a sign of intelligence. Maybe we can blame it on colonisation. However, little things matter a lot.
Second, taking the issue of language further, we come to technology. “Okor” in Urhobo means boat. The aeroplane is known as “okor enu” meaning “boat in the sky.” It does not account for space rocket, ballistic missile, hot air balloon and helicopter. “Okor otor” is “boat of the ground,” which refers to road vehicle especially the motor car. It does not account for train, tank, crane, or digger. It also does not account for jeep, 4-wheel drive, salon, sedan, limousine, hatch back, station wagon or convertible.
We can add things Nigerians just love to have. Mobile phones, electronic gadgets, and internet access. Membership of social media platforms is pushing the expectations of Nigerian languages beyond its limits. No liver?
I honestly wonder if Nigerian languages themselves stand as intelligent, evolving, or adaptable by their speakers. If all reality emerges solely from language as many philosophical schools persuasively demonstrate. How can Nigerians do well in the global market with the limited languages they have?
Nigeria’s so-called most intelligent personalities are those who think almost exclusively in English or Arabic, but they tend to struggle gravely with the idiomatic aspects of the native language. Once one starts to think in Nigerian language, problems of clarity start to appear amongst the elite. With all your learning in English you must come on down to “Nigerian earth.” There is no escaping this.
Nigerian languages lack basic words and terms for justice, good governance, enlightened leadership yet its citizens crave them. For corrupt practices, ethnic hatreds, distractions and derision, Nigerian languages are competent.
Many people in Nigeria, particularly Westerners, are fond of saying “if you understood Yoruba, you would have found what I said funny.” Why? Because saying it in English robs it of its humour or meaning. That is true but only with regards to English. The humour we cannot retain when translated directly into Urhobo and other Bantu languages. A strong language is fully translatable in the context of another strong language even if with difficulties and deficits.
Nigerian languages are not strong and very incomplete in comparison. That is not to say they are not interesting, useful, or enjoyable. Translate “sio no” to English and you get “remove it” which means nothing to an English-speaking adult. However, it means a lot to adult Urhobo speakers. It is the most identifiable phrase in one of the most famous yarns on sexual activity in Urhobo language. I think with the right tone “gbe kuro,” has the same meaning in Yoruba without loss of….
Third, for those Nigerians who are illiterate or have low literacy skills, the story can get very unpleasant. Nigeria has one of the largest populations of illiterate people in the world, according to UNESCO reports. It is a catchment of people Nigerians love to forget just as they do the people resident in the Makoko slums.
A non-industrial non-technological language is also a great harbour for superstition. The vocabulary and concepts of witchcraft and jass is vast and profound in Nigeria.
No Nigerian language has words for virus or bacteria. Millions of Nigerians still believe AIDS, tuberculosis and other serious infections transmit through witchcraft, are preventable with “jass” and are curable by spiritual means. Simply because they have no concept of microbial transmission of disease in their reality and their language.
When Patti Boulaye stated this fact on Nigerian television in 2003, many self-appointed intellectuals dismissed her argument. All Boulaye said was the inclusion of bacteria and virus in the local languages of Nigerians was essential so that ordinary rural and urban folk could “understand” and “save” themselves from the hell of sexually transmitted diseases.
Can Nigerians languages adequately capture the realities of the demands, necessities, technologies, and problems of the 21st Century. If they cannot where do the claims of being most intelligent people in the world come from? This question is not trivial. The Nigerian elite, be it in business, government, politics, science and technology, art, and culture want to carry the nation forward. They must do a lot of thinking in Nigerian languages against a background of stronger international languages. No contest.
Soon Nigerians will be thinking in Mandarin.
Language has limitless power but not yet for Nigerians especially in global sense. I applaud those who advocate Nigerians should receive formal education in their indigenous languages. It should help Nigeria thinking evolve and enrich its capacity for solving its modern day and future problems. After, all the solutions to Nigeria’s problem lie strictly within Nigeria but it must be legitimate challenge if not practice of Nigerians.
Intelligent Nigerians need strong local languages.
Grimot Nane
