Teaching My Son How to Count the Numbers 1-10 in our Native Ikwerre Dialect
Hi Home Edders.
Today's exercise is very important to me a father in terms of starting the new year with being intentional about promoting and teaching my kids my native language in addition to the English language being taught in the conventional school. I'm doing this because most children in Nigeria and my locality focus on phonetical pronunciations in English rather than creating a balance in making sure that their children speaks both English (the lingual franca of Nigeria) and their native language. Other indigenous languages are not taught in Nigerian schools, the languages that are promoted is English and French languages. My question is should a child be taught in English language in school neglecting his or her native language? Today's post will focus on improving my son's counting skills in my native language beginning from number 1 to 10. Greetings from @salvadornkpara.
A Brief Background About the Ikwerre Ethnic Nationality
My family and I are Ikwerre people and Ikwerre is an ethnic group in Rivers State, Nigeria. It's a conglomeration of four local government areas namely: Emohua, Obio Akpor, Ikwerre and Port Harcourt City. The people of Ikwerre speak the Ikwerre language and are the largest ethnic group in Rivers State, Nigeria.
Gradually Losing the Ikwerre Languages
The compulsory nature of speaking Queens English in schools (Nursery, Primary, Secondary and even the University) has relegated our native languages to the background. These has brought serious setbacks to the development of our cultural values in the lives of our children. Language is very important to every culture and losing any part of it can't be recovered easily. It's only in Nigeria that you'll see a child speaking Queens English than his mother tongue. In Russia for instance, a child will first of all master his or her mother tongue before studying a foreign language. Following this routine, the child will not put his or her mother tongue as a secondary language. Mastering ones mother tongue gives one an advantage in times of crises. For instance of their an Inter-communal conflict, knowing and speaking your mother tongue or language can be of advantage and a source of security to you.
Counting 1 to 10 in the Ikwerre Language
This particular aspect of the post will show the numbers in Ikwerre and English interpretation.
Ikwerre/English
Nnim - One
Evo - Two
Etor - Three
Enor - Four
Isne - Five
Ishinu - Six
Esa - Seven
Esator - Eight
Tolu - Nine
Nri - Ten
Counting our native language is a bit difficult because it's not the language taught in schools. It has also been a setback to us because children are very much interested in speaking Queens English in place of their mother tongue. At least my son can counting 1 to 10 in our native language, which is a plus to me. Thanks for stopping by. What's your views about counting in your native language.
Nice one dear. It's very good for a child to learn his local language.
Thank you very much.
Language is our passport and identity 🆔 so we have to reserve it as it was preserved to us by our predecessors.
In my country,Philippines, most subjects are taught in English. During my time it was only the Filipino and Social Studies subjects that were taught in native tongue. Social Studies in high school then got taught in English too. I think now they have a separate lesson for Mother Tongue where the students learn their native dialect.
As a family, we're still struggling with the Filipino language. If I have one regret then that's not making my kids learn the mother tongue early on. Now they barely want to learn it. We try to speak to them in Filipino but they respond in English.
This is the reality of imposition of other cultures on ours. We have a conscious effort to play in bringing back of language and cultural heritage to the realities of life. Thanks for the comment.
I think it is interesting as well as a wonderful knowledge that is transmitted through language, especially the dialects that identify us culturally and make us belong to a group or ethnic group. I congratulate you because this is a task that is being lost today, many native languages have been displaced and that is losing part of the culture. My congratulations, excellent initiative and thank you very much for sharing.
Thank you for stopping by. It's a deliberate decision to teach my children their mother tongue, because I've found out that it's a deficiency in our society and will not totally be seen in my home.