Just people, friends, colleagues, mentors, places, signs, smiles and wrinkles.
“Ibadan, running splash of rust and gold flung and scattered among seven hills, like broken china in the sun” J.P. Clark.
What is happening here? In one or two instances today during a chat conversation, I have used the word “color”. I think I might be losing my identity. This is exactly how it begins: colour becomes color, travelling becomes traveling, aeroplane becomes airplane, lift becomes elevator, boot becomes trunk and mum becomes mom. It is subtle, it is charming, and in spite of my wall of protection built against such influences as these I am afraid that resistances are falling and I am fighting it as hard as possible. I have already given in to the problematic writing of dates with months first and days later (even though when it is not specified as MMDDYYYY, I still relapse into old habits, and feel good about it.
Now one day, maybe in the days of my descendants, English language as we know it will be dead. It will die different deaths in different parts of the world. In Nigeria, it might evolve through pidginization and more linguistic autonomy into whatever fits the political and ethnic situation of the country. In America however, I am very sure of the form that the writing will take, thanks to the internet, and media glamourizatoin that make it fashionable to invent new ways of expression. A few months ago, I started making a list of some words that have evolved already, going by the ways students use them. So far I’ve come up with these:
Than/then. e.g “I’ll make more money then you…”. This is a classic case of word spelling changing to suit the pronunciation. Too/to. e.g “I love you to.” All you need to do to see examples of this is to go to any popular website and read the comments. When did these changes happen though, and why didn’t I get the memo? The word “definitely” has also been variously spelt as “definately” while I’ve read many instances of “Your a fool…” on Facebook and everywhere else. Language tends towards simplification, linguists believe, and this makes sense. Humans will always look for more ways to reduce the efforts they put into speaking and hope to convey even more information in very little time. “You are” becomes “You’re” and now “Your”. In the nearest future, we might just have to write it as “Yor” to convey the same sense. e.g “Yor an idiot to.” So far, it is still English-sounding, if not totally English-looking.
Now, search me. I do not intend to let go of the “u”s in my “colour”, “labour”, “honour” or “rigour” just yet. Neither do I intend to adopt chat-style lingo of the just emerging generation. If that leaves me as an exotic specimen of humanity just a few years from now, I will just have to live with it , but I look forward to more mutations of the language in the future. “When you are born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat”, says George Carlin. Now I know what exactly he means. As a bilingual person, I have an even freakier experience of the language evolution. In some other parts of the internet today, speakers of Yoruba who can’t be bothered about sticking to its rules of spelling write were (mad person) as “wayray”, maalu (cow) as “maloo” and joo (please) as “jor” in order to convey the sound as well as the sense all at once and without having to bother with tone marks. It is a system that seems to work as planned, and little by little, the two languages that I speak with some measure of proficiency evolve through a series of interesting matrices into each other. In a few decades now, it will be interesting to see how both of them have fared.
In a related but not so similar development, the text of Mark Twain’s two masterpieces The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are now going to be rewritten to replace the words nigger/negro that were used to call attentions to the reality and evils of slavery in the book with the word slave, among other “corrections”. While they are at it, many commentators have also suggested that they go ahead and re-write Alex Haley’s Roots, and Martin Luther King’s many speeches because of the simple use of words that now would be deemed shocking, notwithstanding the context in which they were used in those texts, or their significance as historical materials. I mean, not even Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf – which could be deemed an actually evil text would warrant a revision for any reason as this. But what do I know. America always springs it surprises when one least expects. Or maybe it’s not America but humanity’s tendency to sometimes take itself too seriously to examine its own hubris.
Those interested in what Christmas looks like in Nigeria should read this evocative piece by Lauren Halloran. While you are at it, check out Kevin’s description of typical Nigerian hospitality in his “Then Nigeria Happened” blog post. Faraway in the American mid-west away from the warm tropics of Western Nigeria, all I have is the perception of others of my (perhaps altogether imaginary) homeland. How do strangers see us? What has changed since all this years? What are the things that I – as a citizen of that land – have taken for granted and have assumed as part of the normal part of the landscape without questioning? What are the new features? What do I miss? What do the visitors see?
In November, I read another blogpost about a man who was going through Africa on a bicycle from London to Cape Town. Along the way he passed through many African cities and he wrote about them. The one that interested me the most was obviously his post about entering Nigeria for the first time. For someone coming with a British eye on a bicycle, what does he see? How does he see it? More, how interesting is it to travel through such a large continent on a bicycle? What was the desert like? What of the shores and the mountains? What about the weather?
The prospects of travelling opened up to me the first time I got on a bicycle – the small BMX-type that I inherited from my brother when I grew tall enough to get on it. How far will one go? And what lay out there? The idealistic cravings of those adolescent days have given way to the reality of cars, aeroplanes and internet pages, and we live every day through the eyes of others. Part in delight, part in envy for the authentic realities of their journeys and the occasional weather-conditioned limits of mine, we watch with required fascination. The world is not so big after all.
I felt I should speak about new year resolutions since everyone is doing the same. I don’t have any. I outgrew the whole process a long time ago. This doesn’t mean that I don’t make plans. It only means that I don’t wait until the end of a year/month to begin them. My resolutions come onto me like a whim and stay until I decide to change them again, and life goes on. Recently, I have been thinking of riding my car less and riding my bicycle more. This is one resolution that will be beautiful (not to mention cost effective) if we were not in one of the coldest time of the year. Still, as soon as it warms up, as it often does around here without warning, one might see me cycling with the wind around the campus. End of resolution. Oh, one more: (maybe) blog more, in spite of what school work looks like.
Now what do I expect of 2011? Even that, I’m not totally sure, but I assume that whatever it may be would include plenty traveling, new discoveries, more time with girlfriend, and friends, new pictures (and maybe a new camera), and a more productive time in school. It is funny when I ask myself whether I’m having a more productive time as an independent writer/blogger or as a graduate student; or whether my ability to develop myself by writing is made better by the peer review of the classroom walls than by the comments in a blogpost. Times just change so rapidly that it may well be that the education via this means of global interaction might come to become more challenging (if not more valuable, or more relevant), than the one we get from classroom. In any case, a combination of the two can only be even better. More importantly, I intend to have more fun, laugh more, and love more.
Clarissa gives voice to my thoughts when she advises that resolutions be made to delight the author. As far as resolutions go, I can do with none, or very few. But that won’t stop me from dipping into my bag of curiosities once in a while to look for new things to try. The other question left would be: would I go to Nigeria again this year? I hope so, but I most likely won’t, except I get something/someone to pay for my trips, and give me something really fun to do while I’m there. Summer in Edwardsville is really hot, and I don’t need a tan. Moreover, I’d really love to go and complete my tour of the country – and maybe visit Jos for a third time, and the Eastern and Southern parts for the very first time. But what do I know? Let’s see how the year turns out.
Happy new year to you all.