ktravula – a travelogue!

Will Yoruba Survive?

To @MrBankole, who asked:

I’d like a brief comment, if you don’t mind… (on) your thoughts about the future of (Yoruba’s?) cultural legacies and how they interact with evolving mediums of expression. Do you think they’ll erode…or will they be preserved? Living, breathing, or digital fossils.

I’ve heard many versions of this question before, but this one is about whether the new means of communication (with their inherent tendency for language imperialism) will (or not) send Yoruba, or perhaps any other language with such limited use off the map completely.

I believe, of course, that they will survive. The question however (always) is “in which form?”

The Yoruba language lives today in Candomblé, a religion in Brazil, and in Cuba as Santería. Some of the cultures of the old Gold Coast have remained in Jamaica and some other parts of the Caribbean in sometimes recognizable bits, or sometimes in totally evolved forms. This is the inevitable fall-out of language and cultural transposition. As dead as Latin is, it still lives on in science and in the Catholic Church. The point is that even in the worst case scenario, there will still be a recognizable part of the language left.

So, if in a couple of hundred years, Yoruba survives only in this (electronic) medium through the use by those who remember particular registers from their own childhood and nothing more, we may be left only with that: a Yoruba customized for a medium and a particular kind of audience. An e-diolect, if you will. Over time, as it happened in Brazil and Cuba, the chasm will increase and the distance between the original Yoruba from root and the e-volved Yoruba that lives on in the medium will increase to perhaps an unbridgeable length, with few exceptions.

Or not. (We never really know. Language is dynamic and their survival/destruction is often subject to other issues than just mere technological advancements. Maybe a war will take place and destroy all Yorubas in Nigeria, and the only surviving bits of the language will be those spliced with English and all the other acquired languages we’ve imbibed.) But these are hypotheticals.

I don’t believe that the original Yoruba from the motherland/hinterlands will ever completely disappear from the earth (just like English never will as well). But I believe that all things being equal, they will evolve, differently in speed – of course, depending on their medium of transmission (and the types/number of people that use one kind over the other).

Thank you for the interaction, Lord Banks.

PS: The Speak Yoruba Day on Twitter is still March 1, 2013. It is a chance to showcase the facility of the mother tongue and its relevance to the 21st century.

Ibadan Memories

In advance of a live twitter interview with the folks at @thinkoyo on my memories and opinion of Ibadan at 8pm (Lagos Time) this evening, let me list a few things I remember from growing up:

A serene quasi-communal neighbourhood in Akobo. A sprawling house in the middle of a bustling neighbourhood, we lived with everyone in the area in mutual respect and love for family. We played ball on the dust fields, played ping-pong at evenings, and did all normal young people did during idle, hot, afternoons. I remember crafting a Christmas firework at some point out of the cap of a motor plug, a small nail, and a piece of wood. You added crumbs of fire powder from the tip of a match, hit it against a wall, and heard the loudest sound you can ever make.

A pretty moderate traffic situation on the city’s many roads. Today, there are more roads (due to increase in population) but the traffic situation on major roads have got far worse. I went back to Akobo a few months ago, and I was shocked at how many people now live there. The distance from IDC to Anifalaje used to disappear in minutes under the small steps of my rubber sandals. Now it looks farther than I remember, and the last time I walked it (just a few months ago), I returned home panting for air. And yet, I may have got a better deal than the people who remained on the road, in their cars – to slightly exaggerate the congestion that the place now faces because of traffic.

Things that have not changed: rickety buses. Many of them are now more beautifully painted in the colours of the state, but the terrible state of the automobiles that provide commercial transport services is heartbreaking. (And maybe that would explain the reason for more private cars). More things that haven’t changed: Orita Bashorun. Slightly changed in outward appearance for reason of season, the basic layout remains the same. The radio/tv complex (where I once worked as a teenage broadcaster) still lay sprawled across the centre, while a tiny shopping “mall” flanks it on the right, and then a few more blocks until we get to the main Bashorun Market itself. None of it seems to have changed. St. Patrick’s church and school are on the other side of the road. At Christmastime, all the premises of the broadcasting corporation becomes a large trade fair grotto for holiday fun lovers.

A few names I remember: Dele Tomori (who eventually went to Osogbo as a radio presenter), Bade Ojuade, Sade Ogedegbe (my producer), Folusho Taiwo, Femi Daniels Obong, or FDO as he used to be called then (now a Lagos sports broadcaster), Sola Kayode, Prof (from a popular tv soap shot at BCOS), Folake Ladiipo, Papa Demmy, DeeJay Big El, DeeJay Freeze, Dapo Aderogba (who died), Dapo Adelugba (from the University), Kola Olawuyi (at Radio Nigeria, before he moved to Lagos), Larinde Akinleye (at the University, and his house in Sango), Lawuyi Ogunniran (a constant presence around the house), Yinka Ayefele (a lanky figure before his first hit album), Subuola Gandhi, Bamiji Ojo (and his crew on that Ombudsman show on Sundays), Yemi Ogunyemi, and a number of others whose names and faces have now become a blur. If I ever get to write a book about what I remember, I must title it Name Droppings.

UPDATE: The interview, storified, is here.

From French to English

As a speaker of French as a first language, how has writing in English affected your writing? And how difficult was it to render this book purely in English?

388098_10151137537299085_1297897237_n I find English a much simpler language for writing. French can become quite convoluted. My goal with African Expectations was not to write beautiful or intricate language but to convey ideas in the most direct and forceful manner as possible. I found the English language most suited to this requirement. Overall it was fairly easy to render the book purely in English but certain passages in the book, I have had to translate in my head from French to English. At this point, I mostly think and dream in English but sometimes I am unable to convey certain subtleties of thought directly in English. In those instances, I have had to think in French and translate to English. The translation part of the process has been a challenge because I have had to do research to make sure that what I wrote in English actually had the same meaning as the original thought.

From my interview with Mafoya D ossoumon, the author of African Expectations (a new book of essays, available on Amazon) in the new issue of the NigeriansTalk LitMag.

Bring Flowery Back!

My best moments from the movie Lincoln (which I have now managed to see after many weeks of pining in Lagos) were the parliamentary sessions where lawmakers debated and offered their opinions on the proposed Thirteenth Amendment.

I have not yet seen the full movie Iron Lady, but the parts I have looked forward to the most (from what I’ve seen in the trailers) are the bombastic debate scenes in the British House of Parliament. It is unquantifiable, the pleasure of the spectacle: lawmakers jousting with their best verbal weapons to the loud cheers and jeers of their audience. No doubt like the Roman Senators that long ago predated them, the congressmen made language beautiful to hear, and its use (for ill or for good) pleasant to behold.

Here is one from the real life British Parliament

The example in the movie Lincoln was a little disconcerting for me to understand since the American Presidential system (as opposed to the British Parliamentary system) has made it such that debate in the House of Representatives – being deliberately representative – is now much more decorous than the movie portrayal. What happened in the intervening years? The loss of the power oratory? Political correctness after the many years of political assassinations? Laziness? What?

Here is another example from the Jamaican Parliament, sent to me by a friend:

Beautiful, isn’t it?

If I had a magic wand, I would turn all world democracies into Parliamentary systems, if only to squeeze out of their lawmakers (and thus representatives of the language and culture) the last juice of their lingual soul almost always laid bare in the moments of fiery legislative debates on the floor of the house. As per the United States, look no further to the present constitution of the Senate and the House of Reps. The last time one of them tried to interrupt the president with a two-word interjection, the whole country went into a collective apoplexy. (See Wilson, Joe).

As far as Nigeria is concerned, the last great hope for such grand language use is the former Rep. Patrick Obahiagbon (See below). Not half as flowery as the British Parliamentarians (but far more entertaining, and consistent than his fellow Reps in the Nigerian House), and sometimes wrong in the usage of the heavy words he had chosen as vessel for his bombastic performances, he carried the flag for as long as he could until he was voted out.

We should bring flowery back.

I thank Lincoln for this (however unintended) incentive.

Life, Like a Bus Terminal

Written in Abuja

tumblr_m8mzkwoDp11rtusgmo1_500 Scattered guests, wayfarers from everywhere, travelers,

Gaping kids with idle feet around an open park. Idlers.

Noise, silence, antsy sights from dozen sleepless eyes,

We pass quick glances around the room, a shared sacrifice

in the early dawn of aspirations. From wary skies of town,

news hounds us in our states of mental undress. We frown.

We smile, laugh. We murmur in groups of vain distress,

Or point at a random object of attention: a funny dress.

The day breaks in bits around our ears, even louder voices

calling passengers into new routes into the world. Choices.

The past dances on the stage of memory, shuffling its feet

like the waking passengers traipsing towards empty seats.

Like before, each new step is a beginning into the cold wild,

with the certainty of the unsure steps of a walking child.

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