The Task of Today and Other Seminal Essays

Part VI. A Case for Early Bilingualism

193 Part VI A Case for Early Bilingualism 194 195 A Case for Early Bilingualism Moreover, it must be remembered that an early start with languages may save the adult person years of laborious work later on, at a period when his energy and time could be put to better use. Professor Paul Christophersen.14 A poet once boasted: ...we are the movers and shakers Of the world forever... With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world’s great cities, And out of a fabulous story We fashion an empire’s glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song’s measure Can trample a kingdom down 15 This is far from idle bragging. We need but a cursory glance at the story of the world to see unmistakably the tremendous power that language possesses to overthrow and destroy, to pull down and demolish; to plant and to build. Any movement that ever shook the world to its foundations, that ever sent kingly crowns rolling in the mire, had its writers and its orators. Witnesses, Voltaire, Rousseau, the Encyclopaedists; Mirabeau, Danton, Robes Pierre and the author of the Marseillaise, with reference to the French Revolution ; witnesses, Marx and Lenin, with reference to the Russian. Writers, by spreading certain ideas abroad, create a ferment in the minds of men and, one day, a demagogue from a soapbox whips the smouldering passions blazing. On the constructive side, there is the immeasurable influence that the 14 Inaugural Lecture delivered on Foundation Day, November 17th, 1948 at University College, Ibadan 15 Arthur O’Shaughnessy : The Music Makers 196 great scriptures of the world – the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas – have wielded, generation after generation, and will continue to wield, till God knows when, on the lives and the destinies of peoples without number. The power of the word, the power of literature, to incarnate a people’s spirit, to inspire genuine, generous heroism, was recognized even from very early ages. The consciousness of this has given the world immortal epics like the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Beowulf, das Nibelungenlied, les Chansons de Gestes, the Arthurian Legend. We have seen, even in recent history, how one man’s mouth can galvanize a worsted people back to victory; how one man’s mouth can sweep a gifted, powerful nation off its feet, into mad ness and disaster. Witness, Churchill; witness, Hitler. For men are wont, in moments of crisis, to turn to a talented tongue for inspiration and direction. And so it is that, wherever people gather for a purpose, the man with the gift of the word wields tremendous influence; and it is to him, more often than not, that leadership goes. If the store of a person’s language contains no more than the hackneyed phrases of the street and the office, he can hardly ever hope to make an impression on others. There can scarcely be any doubt about it, therefore, that a good education in language is one of the most effective ways of launching a young man in to life. So much for the power of speech on others. What about the influence of language on the speaker himself? Language and Personality A comman                      psychological consequences. For there is hardly a greater social handicap than incorrect speech. Those who have never sojourned abroad may not fully realize what this means. But those who have spent long student years in English and, let us say, where being black already makes you the victim of so many irritations, know what a torture social life can be to a person who is plagued by the constant fear of being betrayed by faulty pronunciation or grammar. That can cripple a personality and ruin a career that would otherwise have been brilliant. In fact, one of the reasons given for the failure of students abroad is insufficient language education in preparation for higher studies. On the contrary, those who have had the experience can bear witness 197 what a tremendous asset a command of speech can be how much selfconfidence it inspires, how many disabilities fad away before the chap that is armed with it. As certainly as a poor possession of speech cripp       psychological growth, just so certainly does a brilliant grasp of it help to build up a solid and outstanding personality. All what I have said...