Language Health

By Josiah Chijindu Egbilika The use of Naija popularly called Nigerian Pidgin has been Advocated by drivers in Port Harcourt the Rivers State capital to be use when carrying out sensitization campaigns by institutions. The call to use Nigerian Pidgin as a communication means for sensitization programmes was made when the Federal Road Safety Corps, Rivers State command carried out a sensitization programme on safe driving and observing Road Safety Rules especially as the raining season intensifies. According to the drivers, the use of pidgin will make them understand the message communicated better.  Federal Road Safety Corps sensitize drivers on road safety in Port Harcourt  This does not negates the fact that they are unable to understand English, which currently serves as the official language in Nigeria but the call is to promote the use of Pidgin in social space. In Nigeria, over 90% of people understand and communicate with Nigerian Pidgin. The once creole language has b...

The Creationist Theory: A continuation of the origin of language   Saying apes can acquire language because they can learn some simple signs … is like saying humans can fly because they can jump” – Noam Chomsky (Horgan, J., Profile of Chomsky,  Scientific American ,  262 (5):17, 1990) The real reason why people deny that the different languages were created by God, is so that they can use bad language. After all, if language is not God-given, there are no objective standards and anything goes” Paul Braterman stated as he defends the reality of God being the originator of language. ( https://paulbraterman.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/linguistic-creationism/ ). The creationist theory holds that God created language as well as the world. It believes that man from onset was created with the ability to speak. This is because beyond just a creationist, God was also a speaking being (Genesis 1:3; Genesis 2:18), who spoke everything into existence (Genesis 1...

...a continuation from episode 2: -  Where does Language Originates from? The argument where language emanates from has never been a settled phenomenon. The divide is anchored on the facet of one’s believe or ideology. X-raying the fact that language is not acquired in isolation but with a mixture of natural phenomenon stimulated by the speech pattern in our communication environment, ideologies postulating and placing origin of language on interactions between man and its immediate environments might sound cool and ok. This however, looks at the language system as man has evolved and interacted over time. It does not explain the situation when the first man was alone with animals before the population of the earth. "Relaying to the fact that the language community at the time was with animals, how was he able to speak/communicate distinctively. How come his speech pattern became entirely different from that of other animals? How come there is no understanding bet...