FamilyQZebra

29 Jul 2 min read

My Son Calls Our Language "Local"

I never imagined that one day I would need to convince my own child to speak the language I grew up with. I'm from Rivers State, while my wife is from Enugu. Before our son was born, we made a simple promise to each other: he would grow up speaking both our native languages. We wanted him to know where he came from, to understand his roots, and to communicate freely with both sides of the family. But somewhere along the way, that dream quietly slipped away. Today, my son speaks only English. Whenever his grandmother tries to speak to him in our native language, he responds in English. One day, she smiled and encouraged him to answer her properly. He looked at her and innocently said, "Grandma, those languages are too local. English is better." The smile on her face disappeared instantly. I couldn't even get angry because, deep down, I knew he didn't invent that mindset. He learned it. At school, children are encouraged to speak only English. Some are even punished for speaking their mother tongue. On television, YouTube, TikTok, and social media, English dominates almost everything they watch. Many parents, including us, proudly celebrate when our children speak perfect English but rarely make the same effort to teach them the languages of their ancestors. Slowly, without realizing it, we've started treating our own languages as if they are less important. The painful part isn't just that my son can't speak our language. It's that one day he may not understand the stories his grandparents tell, the songs that welcomed us into the world, the proverbs that carry generations of wisdom, or the greetings that define who we are. A language is more than words. It carries history, identity, respect, values, and a people's soul. When a language dies in a family, a piece of that family's history dies with it. That experience opened my eyes. Preserving culture isn't only the government's responsibility or the job of schools. It starts at home—in the conversations we have, the stories we tell, the songs we sing, and the language we choose every single day. I'm not giving up. From today, our home will become a place where English and our native languages live side by side. My son can be fluent in English without losing the language that tells him who he is. Because traditions rarely disappear in a single day. They disappear quietly... one family, one child, and one generation at a time. And if we're not careful, the generation that forgets its language may also forget its identity.