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Parents tasked on promotion of mother tongues

By Paul Adunwoke
16 December 2021   |   3:45 am
Parents have been asked to teach their wards their mother tongues to protect them from going into extinction.

Parents have been asked to teach their wards their mother tongues to protect them from going into extinction.
 
General Manager (GM) of Bond FM, Lagos, Mrs. Adenike Adegoke, made the call at an essay competition for secondary schools on Yoruba language, organised by the radio station in collaboration with Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN).
   
She called for promotion of Yoruba language in primary and secondary schools in Lagos State and other Yoruba speaking states in the country, while lamenting that school children and youths are no longer speaking their mother tongues schools.

Adegoke noted that nine students had very high scores in the competition, hence Bond FM decided to give them certificates and tokens to encourage others to do better in speaking their mother tongues.
 
According to her, people will identify with their tribes by speaking their mother tongues in Nigeria.
     
She said: “Mother tongue is very important. I want to use this opportunity to advise parents to ensure their children speak and write Yoruba language so that their mother tongue will not die.

“ We must ensure the Yoruba language grows because as language grows, the people also grow. We have seen over the years that our children are no longer speaking their mother tongues and if they do not speak, they
cannot write it, which is very bad.”

Overall winner of the competition, Agbaje Oyindamola, commended Bond FM for the gesture and asked other students to see Yoruba language as an important one.
 
“I am very happy today because I did not expect to emerge overall winner of this competition, but I give glory to God,” she said.
 
Onishasha of Shasha Kingdom, Oba Nasiru Lawal, also commended Bond FM, saying it is important for children to speak indigenous languages.
 
According to him, Yoruba language has different meanings and there are some words in Yoruba language that cannot be translated to English language or any other language, hence there is no way one can compare Yoruba language with any other language.
   
He said: “I will advise parents to ensure that their wards speak indigenous languages, because it has many values.”

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