On June 29, 2006, Professor Kola Owolabi delivered his inaugural lecture at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, titled, 'Nigeria's Native Language Modernization in Specialized Domains for National Development: A Linguist's Approach'. The thrusts of the lecture are as follows:
(i) 'that the use of Nigeria's native languages, particularly in specialized domains, is a sine qua non for national development'; (ii) 'that rapid and genuine technological, political, social and economic empowerment of the vast majority of Nigerians so as to enable them to "utilize scientific and technological knowledge in creating wealth, self reliance and equality of life" ... and to contribute meaningfully to national development, can only be possible through the media of their native languages but not through imposed foreign languages such as English and French'; (iii) 'that for the purposes stated in (i) and (ii) above, Nigeria's native languages can, and indeed, must be modernized'; and (iv) 'that for the purposes of modernizing Nigeria's native languages in step with (iii), linguistics provides the necessary tool while professional or trained linguists who are vast in the application of the techniques of language modernization are indispensable'. His recommendations are as follows; (i) 'The setting up of a Language Engineering Centre, as a matter of urgency, with focus on the development and use of Nigeria's native languages in specialized domains (call it "Centre for the Modernization and Application of Nigeria's Indigenous Languages" - CEMANIL) particularly at the University of Ibadan, in its capacity as Nigeria's premier university, and in consonance with its Vision for the 21st century...' (ii) 'The establishment of Departments of Linguistics and Nigerian (or African) Languages in all our specialized universities, whose programmes would be accessible to science and technology programmes, or vice versa, with a view to producing graduates who would be capable of resolving the problems associated with the use of indigenous languages for the overall advancement of the Nigerian nation scientifically and technologically'. He then concludes that '...a meaningful scientific, technological, economic, social and political development of the Nigerian nation, which requires participation by all and sundry, cannot be achieved by using the medium of foreign language exclusively since the vast majority of Nigerians speak and understand only their native languages. For this reason, there should also be widespread recognition of our native languages as key factors in the overall development of the Nigeria nation. But concerted efforts should be made to accelerate the modernization of our native languages in specialized domains for grassroots communication in the overall interest of national development and the University of Ibadan should play a key role in such developmental activities by establishing a functional and viable language Engineering Centre as proposed.' Lawrence Olufemi Adewole Department of African Languages and Literatures Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria cellphone: 0803-471-4476 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
