How do we reverse this trend? Organizing language competitions is good, but it only scratches the surface. Even if your wife is from another ethnic group and cannot speak your language to your children, what about you? In many families, whose children cannot speak the local language, both parents are of the same ethnic group. Some men blame their childrenвЂ™s inability to speak their language on the fact that they are married to women from different ethnicities. But of what use is that? How are they going to transmit Urhobo to their children if they cannot speak it? My children console me that they at least understand Urhobo, even if they cannot speak well. Unfortunately, I have been unable to replicate it.

вЂњRestrict your English to your school with your students,вЂќ she told my father. She was very strong-willed about it and even forbade my father, an English Language graduate, from speaking English in the house, except when he was teaching us English.

We (my brothers and I) escaped that orientation because of my mother who insisted that not just Urhobo, but our Ewhu dialect, should be spoken in the house. What annoyed me most was that they were not even good at it it was not the smooth Hennessey XO kind of Pidgin English spoken in Warri, but Pidgin English with Ogogoro (local gin) brashness. Pidgin English has replaced local dialects as the main language of communication. I used to look up to the villages for the survival of the local languages, but my heart sank when I spent time at home during the 2015 general elections. Dem say Warri no dey carry last, but na serious last we carry for this matter. We now have generations in their 40s, 50s and early 60s, who cannot speak their languages, so what culture do they transmit to their children? Now we have politicians, who want to or represent constituents they cannot communicate with in their local languages, and priests/pastors, who need interpreters before they can celebrate Mass or perform church service for their own people. We have always been proud of Warri as the headquarters of Pidgin English, but Pidgin English has become our real nemesis.

Warri pidgin english