On Language
Answer truly, if only for a moment and to yourself: how are you in the home of your body?
For me, the past two weeks have been lovely, mostly. I have been stealing afternoon naps for myself, among other kindnesses. I held kittens for the first time, at the beginning of this week, and those minutes could have been endless. When I think of their purrs and glinting eyes and nimble bodies, I consider myself enchanted—yet this word only favours stereotypes against them. Earlier this week, I entertained some unkind doubts, and found myself returned to Emerson, to tell me, to remind me where and how to look, how to listen, to see. I have been drawn to articles and essays and poems, and the result of this, partly, is that I have not completely read any book to leave you with. Also, for some reason, I have been toying with the idea of what Davido’s The Best would sound like if Mayorkun’s verse were ad-libbed by Zlatan.
Language and other thoughts
Language is nothing but meanings, and meanings are nothing but a flow of contexts.
—Lyn Hejinian.
As a whole, when I think of this past fortnight, the recurring thought has been language—from fond to specific thoughts, to dialogues or the musings of others. Many paths of thought led to the recurrence of language for me, till a thread grew between them.
On a night drive home, Olamide’s Infinity played on the radio. After Omah Lay’s voice trailed over ‘Sunny Nweke’, Olamide’s verse continued and the first ‘banana’ in the lines ‘Is what you do with the banana/Go determine if you go get house for Banana’ was redacted; and I thought of language and its flow of contexts—how the same word in different contexts can both be deserving and spared of erasure.
Earlier in the fortnight, I am running an errand—blending peppers—and the woman who attends to me leaves her children in the middle of their assignments. We agree on a price and I take the seat she offers me. My eyes meet with her daughters’ and they bring their assignments over. I hold the younger one’s hand as she traces capital and small letter fs in her handwriting workbook. The older one waves her sibling away when she is done and she begins to recite from her colourful textbook; A for, B for. When she gets stuck on I, she raises her pencil to her mouth and smiles at me, I whisper “ink”, and she continues reciting until she gets to the interesting Q. This time—when she smiles at me—I remain silent. I nod and she understands the encouragement to try. Her gaze returns to the alphabet and the image above it. After seconds of thought, she breaks the silence with a tender answer: Q for Quoman. I meet her gaze with a smile and return to the image of a woman seated on a throne. Is she wrong? I cannot possibly call that wrong, the logic is almost flawless. “Yes. And this is a Queen.” Q for Queen, she mutters twice, and goes on to R.
The direction of tomorrow or the spatial metaphors used in indicating past and future vary across languages. In English, because of the writing direction and the act of walking forward; the past is behind and leftward, while the future is in front and rightward. In Mandarin, because of the writing direction, the past is above, while the future is below. In Vietnamese, because of the act or direction of sight, the past is before—seen and known—, while the future is behind you—unseen and unknown.
In a vox-pop that doubled as a skit, a man was asked for a word starting with X; his answer—Xcetera.
In the opening scene of the third episode of We Are Who We Are’s first season, Fraser reads to Caitlin the words of Ocean Vuong:
Caitlin: What are you reading?
Fraser: "In the body, where everything has a price, / I was a beggar."
Caitlin: A beggar?
Fraser: "I watched, through the keyhole, not / the man showering, but the rain / falling through him."
Caitlin: Who's that?
Fraser: Poet.
Caitlin: I don't get poetry.
Fraser: First time I saw you, you were reading a poem.
Caitlin: Me? Never.
...
Caitlin: Why do you read poetry?
...
Fraser: I'm looking for stuff that means something.
...
Fraser: And the same goes for poetry. Every word means something.
In a scene from the next episode, Sam calls on Kendrick Lamar as a witness to the poetry he knows:
Sam: You think you're the only one who know poetry, huh? [silence] I know poetry, too.
"All's my life, I had to fight, nigga! All's my life, I... Hard times like God. Bad trips like... like God!" [mutters]
Fraser: Not bad.
In her short story—Zikora—Chimamanda Adiche considers language: "In America, I began to call her my father’s other wife, because people assumed “second wife” was the woman my father had married when he was no longer married to my mother. But with Kwame I said “second wife,” because he understood. Although he had never been to Ghana, he had grown up familiar with his father’s family, with relatives from a different place."
The meaning and understanding shifts as the socio-cultural context changes from here—where the expression carries the expectation and possibility of polygamy—to there—where the expression carries the expectation and possibility of renewed marriages.
In his article On Lionheart’s Oscar ban: Is Nigerian English a Foreign Language?, Kọlá Túbọsún explores the dynamism of language and the treatment Nigerian English receives both from Nigerians and foreign institutions such as the Oscars. He navigates briefly, the dysfunctional badge of education aspired to, which involves unnatural pronunciations and the rejection of our peculiar syntax. He points out many accurate examples and an example like his is how in the context of Nigerian English, the word tea means hot chocolate or Milo. If a Nigerian wants tea in the British sense of the word, Lipton will be demanded. To then argue that a certain usage of the word is wrong or right is to fail to recognize its context—given that language and the meaning it carries ought to serve and reflect the dynamism its speakers; not the other way around.
These thoughts concerning language and Nigerian English were united for me in the course of the fortnight in the works of Ope Adedeji. Beyond her craft displayed time and time again across varying themes and through different characters, I see in her short stories a true reflection of language as used in the worlds she narrates. In one of her stories, I learned a new expression. It caused me amusement, the first time, to read ‘mortuary-standard’ as a description for a drink—of course, the dictionary was of no help, and I just took it to be a description of sorts. Reading another story of hers a day later, the thought resurfaced and this time I went searching for meaning.
This time, I took a chance with Nairaland and Google combined. The first set of results from Nairaland were used in describing the working conditions of car air-conditioners. I began imagining countries drenched in snow, an entire landscape, shivering to a mortuary-standard. I later found a result that defined the use of the expression in the story, on Nairaland via Google with a caption and image.
“Dis one na real mortuary standard. In dat state u’ll down 5 straight bottles without noticing. And den finish work.”
The thoughts or conversations around Nigerian English of course differ from that of Pidgin English; and the definition of finish work in this context or any other is a conversation for another time.
Readings
As always, I will leave you with words to hold you till I next write to you. All these varied works are by the brilliant Ope Adedeji. All the works are linked to their sources, click to read.
Enjoy.
The Caller
A House Full of Spirits
The Photograph on the Wall
Women Who Bleed Colours
Playlist
Through the course of this fortnight, I have returned to the beauty of some of my favourite artistes—with one artiste's album in particular just clocking a year—and I have found new ones as well. I will leave you delights to listen to, of these, James Vickery and Lianne La Havas are relatively newfound. Enjoy listening to James Vickery’s Until Morning, Olamide ft Omah Lay’s Infinity, Amaarae’s SAD, U BROKE MY HEART, Lianne La Havas’s Bittersweet, Sabrina Claudio’s On My Shoulders and FKA Twigs’ mirrored heart.
I wish you a blissful fortnight. I hope to read from you soon.
Love.
Ọbáfẹ́mi