Prof. Igbineweka
Hendrix Oliomogbe
With well over 230 tongues spoken across the country, one may not be too far away from the assertion of Nigeria being the place of the biblical Tower of Babel. Cases of several neighbouring villages speaking completely different languages abound in the country with English being the lingua franca.
Esperanto
In East Africa and parts of Southern Africa, tongues and tribes may differ but in the brotherhood of Swahili, which is widely spoken, they all stand. In North Africa, Arabic is widely spoken. The situation is however different in West Africa, where a multiplicity of European languages which include English, French, Portuguese are the official languages due to colonial legacies.
That ugly narrative may soon be a thing of the past if a linguist, Prof. Alex Igbineweka has his way. A new language, Guosa which he invented may just turn out to be the elixir, a new lingua franca for Nigeria and the West Africa subregion if the initiative is given the necessary government support.
Enter Guosa Language
Igbineweka from historical Benin City, Edo State said that Guosa which stands for Gulf of Guinea United, Oppressed, Survivors, and Africans is a proposed constructed language or lingua franca designed to promote unity and communication among speakers of various indigenous languages in the Gulf of Guinea region of West Africa.
Based in California, United States, Igbineweka, a linguist and educator explained that with a base vocabulary Inspired by Nigerian and other West African languages languages, the designer said that like Esperanto which is inspired by Indo-European languages such as English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, he said that Guosa Language also have a streamlined grammar with completely regular conjugations, declensions, and inflections.
Guosa, the evolutionist emphasized, aims to bridge linguistic barriers in the region and facilitate communication among the diverse ethnic groups.
He said that the language draws from elements of several African languages and some European languages, making it a synthetic language with a goal of fostering cultural and regional cohesion.
The linguist defended the novel language, saying that it's an indigenous zonal lingua franca evolution for the West Africans, by the West Africans, and from the West Africans– a linguistic democracy for peace, unity, identity, political stability, tourism, arts, culture and science.
He attempted to explain: "If you are Igbo or Twi speaking and I say to you, ‘Bia nbi’, you already know that ‘bia’or “bra” means 'come’. It will not take you much time to figure out that ‘nbi’ is a Yoruba language word meaning ‘here’, and that the whole sentence means, ‘Come here’ i.e. Igbo, Twi and Yoruba linguistic words interlacing evolution.
"In the Guosa language, “bia” (verb) is the key word for “come” whereas “bra” is the “alternate”. If I say, ‘Bia k’awa je abinchi’, ‘k’awa’ is a Yoruba word, meaning ‘let us’. ‘Abinchi’ is Hausa word for ‘food’. Therefore, ‘bia k’awa je abinchi” simply means: “come and let us eat food” in Igbo/Yoruba/Hausa/Kanuri/Fulani/Twi etc language evolution."
He however conceded that Guosa is still a relatively new and evolving concept, and its adoption and development may vary among different communities and regions.
Igbineweka maintained: "This is the centerpiece of ECOWAS unity brought about in Guosa inspirational linguistic science. So, no matter where you are coming from in West Africa, there are words in the language you speak in Guosa that will not only encourage you to learn the language, but also help you to understand other West African dialects."
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Prof. Igbineweka teaching Guosa language at UNIABJA
Inspiration
Born in 1950, the change maker confessed that between 1955 and 1960, he spoke some kind of spiritual languages that were non-existent in real world with his primary school mates very frequently in the dreams at night.
He continued: "This was the genesis of my linguistic message, a God’s calling and a great commission to humanity from those who sits above. In 1957, one of my late eldest brothers, Mr. H.O. Ugiagbe, asked me what I would like to be when I am grown up and I replied that, I would like to invent something that hasn’t been invented or known to man before. My late brother further asked, what would that be and, I replied “I don’t know.”'
Determined to educate and sustain the Nigerian indigenous languages and dialects, he recalled that between 1958 and early 1960, the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) translated and broadcast nine different Nigerian indigenous languages on the Rediffusion daily network program throughout the country.
He listed the languages as Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Edo, Efik, Urhobo, Izon, Kalabari and Fulfulde respectively.
Living with his uncle and benefactor, Oba of Benin, His Royal Majesty, Omo N’Oba Erediauwa who was then the Crown Prince at house number 19, Abakaliki Road, Enugu, Nigeria at the age of 13, he disclosed that he routinely listened attentively to the programme on the radio, which years later became the nucleus and the birth of what is now known all over the world as the Guosa language.
Prior to that era, he explained that the British colonial educational system made it illegal and a penalty for the Nigerian scholars to speak their mother’s tongues both in primary and higher institutions throughout the country.
He bitterly explained how his father had to cough out one penny fine to his primary school management at St. Stephen’s Primary School, First East Circular Road, Benin City because he mistakenly spoke Benin, his mother’s tongue to a classmate named Osaretin.
Decades later, he wailed that he had never stopped having teardrops each time his mind flashed back to that sad memory.
Igbineweka emphasized that the good thing that came out of the NBC nine Nigerian languages broadcasting programs was that, it synced volumes of different Nigerian indigenous words and meanings in his brain as a young boy and so was able to pronounce and recite those words with ease.
He said: "I was trying to learn the Igbo language. Having acquired so much different Nigerian traditional language words, I found myself interlacing Edo language words with Igbo words and some other Nigerian languages and dialectical words, for example: “tota n’ebea” (evolution of words from Edo and Igbo) meaning “sit down here”, “tikpo ‘nu” (Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Urhobo, Isoko and Esan languages) meaning “close your mouth” etc.
"In Nigeria It is very common to interlace any of our traditional words with the English language in oral communication but in my linguistic brain factory, I found it very easy and fluent to interlace the different Nigerian language words, void of the English language in spoken and written communication hence the birth of the Guosa language as an indigenous zonal lingua franca for Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)."
Reception and challenges
The linguist attempted to answer the question that naturally comes up. How has the reception been?
"It had always been multiple dimensional receptions right from the very beginning. It started with high specters of linguistic and cultural xenophobia among majority of the Nigerian linguistic dons, whom the world expected to stand by me, but they got busy trying to kill the language at home and abroad.
"The majority of the international language gurus who have been my super motivators to date but declined to invest financially because, Guosa isn’t their base or language group. In fact, most of them saw it as an key to the extinction of the European international linguistic powers to say the least. Nonetheless, I am forever grateful for their worldwide relentless technical supports.
"Perhaps, the biggest negative or fraudulent impact was from the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), a parastatal of the Federal Government which promised to collaborate with me to develop the Guosa language. After collecting up front contractual money from me, the officials abandoned the project leading to a breach of contract or fraud to be exact. The agency has not returned my upfront payment to me since 1992 to date."
Sounding upbeat, Igbineweka however noted that majority of the ordinary Nigerian citizens and international language communities around the world are highly interested in seeing the success of the Guosa language across the West Africa and the black civilizations.
He said: "Like the Swahili language for the East Africa so is the Guosa language for the West African block. It is inevitable for peace, unity, identity, political stability, tourism, arts, culture, and science packaged in linguistic and socio-cultural democracy."
Undeterred by the challenges of today, all that he sees in the next ten years when he gazed into his crystal ball is a brighter future for Guosa language as it will become the cardinal language of communication by humanity all over the world, particularly, Nigerians and citizens of ECOWAS.
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