It is true that one’s language is their identity, and language shapes our worldview, how we perceive the world of Cultures around us.

Growing up, I’m my family, we had to repeat this family tree chant, learn folk tales and folklore in Tiv. Some of us who fumbled in pronunciation, were laughed at, rebuked and corrected.

But, that was a learning process. Getting acquainted with heritage, history, and Culture. Unfortunately today most of our generation have raised our kids to speak only one language-English.

In my home, to remedy this we began teaching our kids songs inTiv, conversational sentences, asking them to get things for us in Tiv. In fact Saturday’s have been made native days in which we speak only Tiv, to help them learn our language.

If we find people who don’t speak their language, let’s encourage them to learn, don’t mock them, you don’t know their story. Some grew up far from home, and from the influence their culture would have had on them, for no fault of theirs.

Language transmits culture, true, but this does not mean that an absence of language automatically implies lack of manners. I know people who are very cultural in their disposition and yet are unruly, mean, and surly. Should we take it that that’s their culture?

The purpose of language is communication besides identity, and with communication comes interaction and relationships are formed, established on the premise of this communication. If we can be tolerant, understanding one another will come easy.

Two people of a tribe sometimes fight not on the grounds of not understanding their dialect but on non tolerance of one another, perhaps from sheer suspicion. Trust is lost and there are no common grounds for communication, love or unity or collaboration.

Love is the common language that understands all other forms of language.

Speak love, everyman gets that.