The “Outer” World of English Language Usage

by

Obododimma Oha

The sociolinguist Braj Kachru classifies Nigeria under the Outer Circle of English Language because the country  was one of those that received the language through colonization by the British and has other indigenous languages. Negotiation of meaning in this anglophone country requires reconciling the local semiotic system with that of English. Other countries in this category are Ghana, Kenya, India, etc. There is the hope, however, that countries in the Outer Circle can, with time, become members of the Inner Circle, which is reserved for native speakers. But is this dependent on usage and, of course, a proper educational system that deploys English as a language of instruction. Otherwise, a member of the Outer Circle could slide into the Expanding Circle where English is weaker as a foreign language. Expanding Circle member countries were not previously colonized by Britain but find it necessary to use English for their commerce, politics, etc, and mainly because English is now a big-time international player. Since they cannot displace English in this globalized world, the wisest thing is to use it for these purposes while looking out for its loss of power!

I am interested in how Nigeria of the Outer Circle manages its status and what it can become in the future. Actually, it is good to think about what the "now"could be in the future. As a teacher of English in the Outer Circle, this should be one of my concerns. Not that one is out to promote linguistic imperialism and to perpetuate it. Not that learning or teaching English in the Outer Circle does not pose its interesting stylistic challenges -- challenges not available to Inner Circle use or pattern. In fact, one does not embark on the futile venture of trying to turn Outer Circle learners to Inner Circle speakers! Fair international intelligibility and sensitivity to context are just enough. There is no regional variety or dialect of English that does not have its interesting music of speech. But I am worried when the conditions for intelligibility and sensitivity are dwindling or not given enough attention. In that case, an Outer Circle member that authorizes "anything-goes" in usage may soon become even worse than the Expanding Circle, not relocating to it!

Perhaps the term "Outer Circle" even has some hidden meanings. As an "outsider" to usage, the speaker may become an Esu Elegba, that Yoruba prankster-god, who is kept outide so that he would not embarrass the gods with his mischief. An Outer Circle status then means something like the avoidance of a leper or an ostracism or just a strategic alienation in the circle. And being "outer," in the isolation scheme, is to narrate the strangeness of the occupant.

Yet many young users of English in the Outer Circle in Nigeria do not seem to mind. It is not only that they have now made permanent the dualization situation in which they (are forced) to use standard English in the classroom but fall back to pidgin English when  "liberated" from classroom situations. Many use pidgin as a mere "shield" to disguise their incompetence in conversations with friends or in other discourses. Apart from the wire hanging from ear to ear, what you are likely to hear when you come across them is: "a de do; a dey come!" Then, loud hip-hop music! The false assumption many have is that they have escaped to a form of expression less stringent in rules, or that in pidgin, anything goes! Of course, the use of pidgin is liberating and is humorous, but are these enough reasons to abandon standard forms needed out there for a sound production and dissemination of knowledge?

Many Nigerian youths are content with being handed banners with so much stain, including banners of "sick" expression. One is not talking about the wrong assumption that we have been created English or that English is the norm. One is not talking about the laziness that prevents somebody from learning the languages used by Nigeria's neighbours -- French, Spanish (thanks to some business persons who cross the borders and try to speak these languages....); it is either English or no other language! One has to be terribly English, just the same way Nigeria's politicians have to go to Britain, Nigeria's former colonial master, to present political handouts at Chatham House and to get approval from the master. Or is it their medical treatment? Is it not the former colonial master that is trustworthy enough to carry out a diagnosis and prescribe treatment? Indeed, its linguists also prescribe treatment for Nigeria's attention to language.

I must have frightened some friends when I told them recently that in the future, maybe 1,000 years from now, when my bones must have whitened in the grave, I would like to come out once in a while to sit on my tombstone and look around to see what the world has become, especially the Outer Circle. I would like to see whether its Englishness is still there, whether some people that are mindful of time still greet "good evening" in the morning, or whether a man is still referred to as a "she" in the shithole! Then, I would quietly return to my grave and remain dead. Just to satisfy my curiosity!

It is painful to remain brutally and crudely English, what more staying alienated in usage and enjoying the embarrassment.

The Use of Igbo Proverbs in Christian Evangelization

By

Obododimma Oha

The use of some Igbo proverbs in Christian evangelization, whether in direct preaching or other modes like music and film, is one site of the meeting between the Christian and the indigenous, this time around in the province of signification. It is true that Christianity has been on the offensive path, looking at the indigenous as undesirable and signifying the presence of the devil, but Christianity and indigenous life have also been cooperating on other fronts. This “cooperation” does not mean that each does not look for an opportunity to gain advantage or to devour the other and become dominant. Happening at the site of signification, precisely rhetoric, the appropriation of Igbo proverbs might look simply as an endorsement of the validity of local thought, but it is also (and even more) an endorsement of the Christian and making the audience view the issue through the eyes of the expression they know and to which they subscribe fully. Thus, in a sense, it is strategic use, a pretentious use even.

Yes, the use of those proverbs indicates being mindful of the Igbo audience and getting to the hearts and liking of its members. It is, therefore, being context-sensitive in performance. The audience? Well, this audience is hybrid in its values. This audience has realized that it is inevitable to put new wine in old bottles, no matter what “new wine” and “old bottles” might refer to. In other words, the preacher can hypothesize that this audience believes what it believes or stands between two worlds of signification and would still be the one to make choices in the rhetoric, no matter the rhetoric the preacher comes from the Jewish world to impose. So, the audience, like the customer, is still king!

Of course, there are English or other proverbs in existence. There is even the Book of Proverbs in The Holy Bible. A preacher could have used these. But speaking mainly to the Igbo or in the Igbo world could mean the preference of an Igbo aesthetic. The preacher may want Igbo ears through Igbo proverbs, Igbo ears that care for the beauty of the speech provided by the proverbs!

Preachers that know their worth look out for strategies in discourse that would help in getting the target easily. It is just like market research. Yes; they  are marketing Jesus Christ and must study and know the market. This time around, the rhetoric mainly used in the market could be the answer.

Now, let us get closer to the actual use of these proverbs in contemporary Igbo evangelization. How could anyone forget the music of Bro. Paul Chigbo in this instance, apart from the numerous sermons in Catholic and Anglican churches in Nigeria’s South-East in which Igbo proverbs are freely deployed? In Paul Chigbo’s music, especially "Ike Si n’Elu", we find numerous interesting Igbo proverbs, apart from other forms. These proverbs can easily touch and arrest any Igbo listener.

I wrote about “arresting” the Igbo listener above. I hope that is only a metaphorical statement! I hope that security agents that can shoot themselves even are not also deployed to effect the "arrest". Well, that “captive audience” is oriented towards viewing proverbs with reverence as the wise words of the ancestors, even if the fellow next door has authored one. Have I not pointed out somewhere that being able to author these “wise sayings” is expected of us as competent users of linguistic signification? OK; I am saying so now. Another thing is that proverbs can also be “unwise,” voicing out sentiments of their authors, as in numerous proverbs denigrating womanhood in many cultures.

Proverbs as imagined words of the wise try to impose some values on the listener. A preaching applying them indicates an appropriation of what can impose a perspective on others and it can easily be accepted. Preaching hails and tries to intimidate us, even when we cannot see it. That it appropriates proverbs is an easy invitation to an ally. That one is pleased on listening to a preaching using them means that the alignment is a success. 

Sleeping with One Eye Open in a Time of Insecurity

By

Obododimma Oha

The expression “sleeping with one eye open” is an example of a statement of contradiction in logic. One asleep normally shuts two eyes in order to travel out from the body. Unless one is into witchcraft (if you believe in that creepy spirituality) or one is one strange alien whose idea of “sleep” is different from ours. But if one is at home with our human reality, one would view sleeping with one eye open as a very strange practice. Yet the expression becomes a necessary counsel in a time of insecurity or uncertainty where one may be in one’s hut at night only for invaders to break open the door, rape one’s pregnant wife, slaughter one’s children, and set the hut ablaze afterwards. One has to sleep with one eye open and observe the movement of malevolent shadows in the dark. Did our ancestors not take necessary measures to save themselves from slave-raiders, kidnappers, burglars, invaders, and all kinds of mischief makers? Now, we claim to be wiser, helped by exposure to modern technology, how can we be helpless? If we ask them humbly how they were able to do it in their own time, perhaps, they  would tell us. The fact is that we must be ready to learn. For we are in this galaxy to learn.

The Igbo sage puts it rightly: “Kee nkwụcha, na nkwụcha abụghị ụjọ” (Be vigilant, for vigilance is not an attitude of fear at all”). Another Igbo expression from the mouth of another sage adds: “Dụlaga m abụghị ụjọ maka na onweghị onye n’amaghị be ya (“See me off is not a symptom of fear because there is no one that cannot tell the way to their homestead”). And so, watchfulness is an ancient and all-time requirement. Leadership and the Law in many post-colonial nations may claim to be our protector, but our survival remains our individual businesses. Sleeping with one eye open and sleeping with both eyes closed in time of big trouble only indicate how far one understands one’s reality or environment and the measure of skills (life skills) one has cared to develop.

If I say that “sleeping with one eye open” is an example of a contradictory statement, am I not speaking from an angle of one privileged logic; am I not saying that there is a logic that is idealistic and better left to the books and the logic that flows from one’s understanding of one’s reality? “Sleeping with one eye open” may look like a contradictory statement in a logic taught at school, but not contradictory in a context where judgments are not held down with tough nails. In very strange situations, meaning has to be encoded in unusual ways and the insider has to have the keys to be able to unlock the doors of meanings. “Sleeping with one eye open” becomes the oppositional logic operational in worlds where things stand on their heads. Yes; worlds where things are upside-down, and being upside-down is my own problem, a perspective imposed by my reality or the way I look at things. That reminds one that in Igbo folktales, for instance, whenever the narrative shifts to the land of the spirits, the representation of things changes. The logic changes. The spirits, because they have to be unlike us, are presented as walking upside-down, speaking through their noses, could be given seven heads, process information differently, and made to do strange things. For instance, they could eat through their eyes and may be offended if you frown at that or laugh at them! In other words, if we look at the statement (“sleeping with one eye open”), we could discover that it is inviting us to read meanings differently because it is a strange new world where, if humans have learnt to shoot without missing, one has to learn to fly without perching.

One has to learn to “sleep with one eye open” if cows are rated more important than humans and populations are slaughtered, including babies, because we in the era where communities could be”sacked” and renamed and a gate-keepers would watch this, helpless.

One has to learn to “sleep with one eye open” because cows are free to move free-range and could enter a garden and ruin it, devastating sites of labour from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic Ocean. The cows could even move freely in the streets of New York and London in the 17th century pretending to be the 21st century!

One has to begin to “sleep with one eye open” because we are back to being hunters and gatherers across time and no land belongs to anybody. In fact, one does not need be civilized anymore but should turn caves into homes, traversing territories and swinging one’s crudeness.

“Sleeping with one eye open” tells me to stop saying that it is well when it is not. I am either a hypocrite or a liar or even both if I say that it is well, when it is NOT. When logic fights logic, thinking is in trouble! Is thinking not even in trouble if one has to sleep with one eye open, or if somebody is moving backwards while others are moving forwards? 

Lost Civilization

By

Obododimma Oha

Where art thou, now, university

At the beginning or the end?

In the Republic of Freedom

Or the Kingdom of Tyranny?

What are you, now,

A Community of Knowers

Or a Community of Blockheads?

You are

That lost civilization

And also the ambitious future.

You are the wisdom

That conceals foolishness.

Is that a chorister’s robe

That I see

Or a gown that teaches the town?

Look, university, be the horizon of insight

Untainted by ignorance!

Women and the Ownership or Use of Radio and Television in Nigeria

By

Obododimma Oha

Radio and television are important narrators in modern culture. As important narrators, they have to be identified with gate-keeping and their ownership or control also has to align with power or control. In Africa, this can differ from culture to culture. Whereas in some African cultures women can have property, for instance land and houses or have professions that could keep them away from home for a long time, like being a market woman in Yoruba culture (or iyaloja), women, in some cases, have some freedom to maintain radio sets. Previously in many Igbo communities, the narrative power of radio and television was expected to submit to the headship of the family. However, in recent times where cultures shift and many mobile phones have radio and TV as part of built-in multimedia application, ownership and control of these narrative devices are fast changing. Many women in African local communities could tune the radio and listen to news and even other favourite programmes like soccer commentary while waiting for customers in their shops.

 Also, as a way of managing daily stress in their daily lives and with the hold Nollywood films have on their lives in their typical narrations, they may have favourite television programmes like comedy series, sermons, or African Magic (which enacts s new form of magic in their lives, exchanging fiction for reality or presenting what they consume as reality, to reinforce the powers of falsehood in the African society.

Another interesting angle: yes, this ownership or control of the media is comparable to that exercised by governments and some very rich people in society. Don’t ask me whether they influence views or shape them for they do. Don’t ask me if they influence popular thinking and dominant logic for they do. They package and shape and disseminate meanings. The meanings suggested by ordinary and poor folks do not “hold water” and influence little, if they ever do, in society.

Yet, another interesting angle: the ownership and control of the radio set need to be seen also in relation to the ubiquity of mobile phones which many wives can buy and possess. They operate radio apps from these mobile devices, too, even while they work in the streets (sweeping, for instance) and while cooking. Of course, if they are not careful, the distraction from the phones could cause them to add too much salt or too much pepper to the food, Or even add the phones mistakenly to the boiling water! That means, calls and music while they work could be risky!

Whatever may be the case, it is getting very outdated to construct masculine authority as dominant narrative power that can even harness the gramophone, turn-table, television, radio, mobile phone, etc. Such a construction is also laughable. I believe that masculinity may have started leaving radio and television, or even the  computer, to look for other allies!

Being Gifted with Buttocks and not Knowing How to Sit Down

By

Obododimma Oha

Some Igbo proverbs can be very expressive and amusing, and I suspect that this applies to proverbs in many other languages that can be found in Nigeria, especially the Volta-Niger family where Igbo is currently classified. Proverbs are amusing to us, partly because we apply our real-life human situations to the context they literally contain and because of what we find ridiculous in them. One such proverb in Igbo that we can find quite amusing is the saying attributed to the dog: Nkịta sị na ndi nwere ike amaghị anọ ọdụ (The dog says that those who have buttocks do not know how to sit down). So, the dog has been watching us! I thought that it is merely squatting as a “long-throat” as we wrestle with the bony part of the meat! So, the thoughts of that dog can be verbalized; in other words, somebody in the room knows what it is thinking? Also, so the dog speaks our own language but something in its barking makes the deciphering difficult! Dog trainers and vet doctors should hear these!

I wonder why the sage chose to put these human thoughts and human words into the mouth of the barking dog. What more, making the bloody squatting animal a satirist of human behaviour. Who knows whether the dog has applied to USAAfricaDialogue to become a member! Then, it can also watch the shapes of our tongues and the colours of our teeth. In fact, one has to be careful, for (not Big Brother) that dog, that mongrel, that poodle, that bulldog, the terrier... may be watching out for one’s posts!

Animals speak for animals. That is normal. Only when animals speaking for animals and like animals is a strategy of entrapment. The dinta (or ode in Yoruba) knows that very well. Sometimes he pretends to be an animal by imitating the sounds associated with the animal and easily deceives its mates. The get closer, thinking the sound is from a friend, not knowing it is from the worst enemy. Then, BANG! And the mumu animal is down and out. Its life is over among enemies that pretend to be friends. Its journey in the jungle is over.

Some would classify proverbs of this nature attributed to an animal under wellerism, or a statement which contains a known proverb or quotation, a fresh use, and an utterer, which of course adds to its humour and strangeness. So, using those criteria, let us just accept the classification tentatively. The point remains that the lower is positioned to teach the higher, which is perfectly in line with the idea that those who are gifted with buttocks do not know how to sit down!

But why is it so? Is the dog right? Does this apply to individuals as well as large groups like countries. Is the conclusion of the squatting down valid or is the dog merely jealous? Is it not in the province of irony that those that have buttocks do not know how to sit down?

Given that buttocks are for sitting down, whatever “sitting down” means. Given that the dog, literally speaking, is in the fictive situation saying so after comparing itself with those who have buttocks. But the dog has buttocks. Except that animal is denying it, seeing the presence of a tail it wags often as the absence of buttocks. In that case, it sees the tail as a disadvantage, as a symbol of lack! No wonder it prefers to squat here and there.

Igbo culture uses it and its logic as a paradigm for appreciating wise use of resources, or what one is gifted with. It is clearly shown that those who have an advantage ironically turn it to a disadvantage sadly. Are some individuals not misusing (or not using) opportunities? Are some people that subscribe to USAAfricaDialogue actually reading others and do they learn from this virtual classroom? Do they really use the opportunities (fellowships, conferences, workshops, etc) for academic growth or do they stockpile them like any other social media luggage?

No; don’t talk about some shithole countries. It could be very obvious that they misuse resources, and worse still, hardly care about human resources. Oh; why shouldn’t millions be slaughtered or rendered homeless? Are these countries not greatly overpopulated? Is it not better to slaughter the populations as a way of reducing the populations? After all, a country is not its citizens; it is just the map.

Dear dog, keep squatting and learning human language. Keep criticizing the absurd human behaviour. Every observer needs to squat, not sit!

The Rain That Beat the Eagle: An Ironical Twist in Igbo Discourse

By

Obododimma Oha

As we well know, ironies spring an element of surprise on us! We would be expecting something to happen, but its opposite, complete opposite, happens. Life is full of such surprises. But  my attention in this short essay is how this ironical twist that comes with a surprise is encoded in Igbo proverbial discourse  and used to articulate experiences. I have woven the discussion around the eagle, much revered for nobility in Igbo discourse. This is because the eagle is symbolic and the idea of the rain beating a bird and making it both bad-looking and miserable is a very graphic one we can be familiar with. In fact, in Igbo discourse generally, the rain beating a bird is a pitiable narrative often used to evoke pathos and to attribute altruism to its helper, as in the Igbo proverb, ọkụkọ anaghị echezọ onye kworo ya ọdụ n’udummiri (The domestic fowl will always be grateful to the person that removes its tail feathers in the rainy season). The logic behind such gratitude is that the tail feathers easily get wet and make the bird uncomfortable, its movement awkward. Removing them entirely, just like prunning a tree, is some act of love. Of course, the feathers would grow back later. In this regard, one would like to see how Igbo discourse represents the eagle drenched by the rain.

In fact, being beaten by the rain is not always a good experience. It can even be used as a figurative expression to evoke pity for the victim. Little wonder Chinua Achebe, in one of his essays, writes about the need for Africans to know where “the rain” started beating them. That was an idiom borrowed from Igbo discourse. Of course, we know Achebe and his discursive celebration of Igbo culture!  He was, in fact, talking about the need for consciousness, or, as my late father would also put it, nkita m na-egburu ngwere asabehị anya (The puppy for which I am killing and storing lizards is yet to open its eyes). When the puppy opens its eyes or comes to awareness, its redemption would begin. Thus, mistreated people should know where and how this mistreatment started. Anyone wishing to keep them under subservience would not want them to ask where the rain started beating them. Didn’t we see this strategic use of ignorance in the relationship between slave owners in America and Africans enslaved? The slaves were prevented from learning to read and read so that they would not find something out in the books and interrogate their masters. Not even the reading of the Bible, the holy book, was allowed. For the enslaver, it is better and safer to keep the enslaved ignorant. Once the enslaved comes to awareness and could ask question, enslavement is over! Didn’t we see that happen in America?

The proverbial angle. Proverbs are often treated as wise ans tested sayings, although some by encoding fallacies and negative sentiments, suggest themselves as suspect. But, in spite of that, the encoding of the rain beating the eagle and making it more beautiful in a proverb is one way of appealing for its acceptance as a something springing forth from deep thought. Isn’t the fact that its springs forth from deep thinking a mystification and therefore even more revered?

The Igbo proverb that is somewhat central to this ironical twist says: mmiri mara ugo, achaala ugo ahụ (The rain that drenched the eagle has made it even more beautiful than before). Is that not surprising? But we were expecting the eagle to catch cold or to die of cold! Who would climb those heights of its lofty perch to remove its tail feathers or light the fire for it?

It is surprising, too, that, instead of making the eagle look awkward, it rather makes it look more beautiful. Rather than being a mere adulation, the irony invites us to look more closely at life and notice that it is a project. Each soul is a project. Our being here or meeting here is part of the project. Every project has a plan.You see, it is risky, very risky, to subvert this project, especially when one has no power over it.

Allow the eagle to play its eagleness. It is the project. Don’t try to baboon it! At your own risk.

The rain that beat the eagle is not only an ironical twist that shows that we are not in control, it also tells us that we may be assisting what we think we are opposing. That is also an irony. What we don’t like is the eagleness of the eagle; that means we are opposed to the project called the eagle. That is risky. We should be lucky if we are only reformatted so that we can be functional. Terrible if the program is entirely  erased!