A Gift to the Nation
By Da One
Tumbul Trawally Respond: Da One, which language do you think Gambians should choose as their official language, among the many we speak?
You are asking the wrong person the wrong question. The question is formulated in a way to suggest that diversity in language is supposed to be a hindrance to social cohesion and prosperity. I’ve seen and heard it all before. And it’s a very sad situation. That’s what the Europeans made us believe (sadly many of our people have come to internalize that lie) and that our languages do not have the characteristic depth to contain and transport knowledge from one generation to the next.
Language and cultural genocide are probably two of the biggest remnants in the afterlives of slavery and colonialism that persist to this day. No European nation is innocent of this crime they all continued to perpetuate in and on the Afrikkan continent. Our languages are threatened by the imperial languages helped by their backers in our midst. You seem to be one of those people, probably unbeknown to you.
The phenomenon of language death is well underway. It will take political guts to stop that trend by first abolishing English as the only and primary official language in The Gambia. Second, by making sure access to human knowledge and understanding for every school going child is guaranteed in his or her mother tongue. That knowledge is also preserved and archived in all our languages. The easiest excuse that comes with this self-evident truth is the logistics and resource challenges that will come with such an undertaking.
Let me ask those coming with such rebuttals to this question: How many books and trained teachers can thirty-three million Dalasi produce? For your information, that’s the amount stolen by the wife of the current president and no one feels obliged to provide answers for those missing millions. Resources and logistics challenges could easily be overcome with the right amount of commitment and the right attitude.
Momodou Tangara has last week receive five hundred thousand Euros in France to support the teaching of the French language in The Gambia. This must, undoubtedly, make you and Fatoumatta Tambajang happy. Those who truly understand what lead to our enslavement and colonization will have sleepless nights over this Trojan horse. It is a contribution to self-alienation, genocide and the promotion of white supremacy in our country.
As I indicated to you earlier, the powers these parasitic languages possess is thanks to the willingness of Afrikkans to participate in their own destruction. 80 percent of the worlds French speakers will be in Afrikka in 2050. As it stands, 44 percent are currently in Afrikka. What does that tell you brother Tumbul? Still feeling proud for telling me French should become an official language in The Gambia? Listen to this little story.
I asked five hundred people in two WhatsApp groups what is color called in Wolof and Mandinka. Without exception all of them answered as follows:
-Kulorr in Wolof
-Kulorro in Mandinka
A huge discussion ensued in all those groups as to what color is called in those two languages.
I was not interested in the result. I just wanted to test how our languages are losing lexica to Indo-Germanic languages. I came to the conclusion that approximately 15 percent of our lexica are code-switched for English, French and Arabic lexica. Even our grammars and semantics are affected. You are looking at a disaster the magnitude of which is immeasurable. Still feeling proud for telling me French should become an official language, brother Tumbul?
Our elected officials who overwhelmingly represent people who are neither schooled in English nor French, are barred from speaking the languages of those they represent in the most important building in the nation. Tell me, who are they representing? I’m angry, and rightfully so, at you too for the insinuations you made. I am of the belief that you take time to write for the benefit of our people. That comes with responsibilities as a gatekeeper of everything that makes us human.