Reflection on methodology

by Ayo Banjo

Language and history appear to be two slightly different kinds o f imperatives. Language defines humanity in a way that is fundamental, and it is arguable that so docs history. Just as it is inconceivable to have a society without language, so is it impossible to have a people without a sense o f history which is preserved. However, in chronological terms, language comes before historical accounts.

The origins o f language are a matter o f speculation. Even the science o f linguistics has not been able to document how language arose among human beings, though there is no shortage o f theories. At the same time, religions which are concerned with creation tend to take language as given. In the Christian religion, for example. God spoke to Adam and Eve. while Adam and Eve also spoke to each other. This confirm s that, in this w orld view, language was found necessary even when th ere were only tw o individuals inhabiting the whole world. It is an acknowledgement o f the indispensability o f language.

Darwinian theory o f evolution may. on the other hand, attempt to relate the origins o f human language to stages in human evolution, and there appears to be some convergence between this and some o f the speculations by linguists.

However, if linguistics has little light to throw on the origins 44

o f human language, it is able to account convincingly for the dispersal o f language over the face o f the earth by setting up a network o f language families. But it is significant at this stage to note that history is the key factor in setting up or validating these genetic relationships among the world’s languages, just as linguistic evidence also plays no small part in pointing the historian in the right direction, particularly in non-literate societies. T h e sym biotic nature o f the two d iscip lin es is fu lly re fle c te d in th e su b -d iscip lin e o f comparative linguistics w'hich is historical in orientation.

It is obvious, however, that language predates history in the sense that a historical account is the product o f thought and therefore o f language. But there we have just made another assumption, namely, that language and thinking go irrevocably together. But even if all the evidence suggests that they do, can it be demonstrated that one is more fundamental than the other? Did language come about to express thoughts which were already there o r w'as language the precursor o f thinking?

The first alternative seems more plausible until we realize that it is today increasingly believed that lower animals too do have language, however rudimentary and iconic, and this may lead us into wondering whether animals, after all. do think. More recently, we have even been promised the prospect o f computers which, going beyond conveying messages, w-ill be able to think.

O n the other hand, the Whorfian hypothesis would seem to suggest that at least, any particular language very strongly influences the speakers’ thinking and their processing of phenomena. If people are profoundly influenced by the syntax and semantics o f their language, one wonders what brought

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about the differences in the syntax and semantics in the first place. One possible answer to this is the environment, which renders the argument somewhat circular. At any rate, one possible scenario is that the environment determ ines the structure o f language, which in turn determines thinking. The fact that there are univcrsals o f language and thought would then be explained by what all human communities have in common, not only in term s o f the individual's facu lte de langage but also in environmental terms.

On the other hand, it would seem even more natural to suppose that thinking is more fundamental than language - that language, from the very beginning, has been the vehicle o f thought. The implication of this would be that language and thinking are, contrary to established doctrine, not the defining characteristics o f human beings. What is distinctly human would be the complex elaboration o f language leading to, or resulting from, the phenomenon o f complex thoughts.

If philosophers test the limits o f human thought (necessarily resulting in their use o f complex language), the literary artist, particularly in contemporary times, tests the limits o f language to express complex thoughts. The preoccupation is the same in both cases - with thought and language. The difference is that while we think o f the philosopher as being primarily concerned with ideas, we think o f the literary artist as being primarily concerned with creating alternative words with language. But even the literary artist must start with the exploration o f ideas.

With history, we en ter another plane o f the human condition. Although the writing o f history began before the 5,h century B.C., the man whose name is readily associated

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with history writing is Homer. But wc know that Homer had feile in common with the modem historian, for his fame lies primarily in the area o f literature and history merely provided 4k material for his literary activity. This would indeed appear lobe a universal phenomenon, for history provides material

*hich is at once entertaining and instructive for the literary ar.ist. Thus Shakespeare relied on The Chronicles for his

• story plays while, here at home. Achcbc. Soyinka and Clark- Bckcdcrcmo have all used history as source material. None c i them, however, would claim to be a historian.

History writing today has becom e a highly complex activity, but while it shares the use o f language with the literary artist, the goals arc different. The literary artist, while using t storical sources, reserves the right to take liberties with them, adapting them as building blocks in a creative process. The historian, on the other hand, venerates facts but is free to impose his own reasonable interpretation on them.

If thinking has to do with self-awareness- Co^ito, ergo a«n - and language with sharing that awareness with other members o f one s community, history may be regarded as dealing with group self awareness. It seems possible that the three levels o f awareness have always been there. Wc see this in the way in which the w orld's leading religions maintain a historical perspective. In Christianity, the O ld Testament constitutes the history o f the Jews as perceived by the Jews, and. o f course, this history is substantially shared with Islam.

E\cn in traditional religion, the Ifa corpus has embedded in it

^ Yoruba historical view o f the Yoruba race. Given a thinking X ing interacting with other thinking beings in a clearly defined cultural environment, it is perhaps impossible to avoid

learning past events, or being curious about how the culture has been shaped through time. It may therefore be suggested that no human community exists without ideas, language and a conscious construction o f its history. The trial, being basic, would seem to be in the vanguard o f any meaningful human development anywhere, and it was to reduce the human worth of Africans that the English historian Trevellyan once referred to Africans as a people without a history. As we have tried to indicate, this is in fact a contradiction in terms.

What such critics want to suggest is that without a written record there can be no history. Fortunately, African historians have taken up the challenge and demonstrated the validity of oral history. Now, however, that African history is being written rather than passed from mouth to mouth, we may enquire into the language in which that history is written. Can adequate justice be done to the history o f a people when it is written in a foreign language? The answer will have to be yes and no.

Nothing stops an Englishman from writing a creditable history o f France o r Germany. But I suspect that, however hard such a historian tries, lie will be accused o f bias, o f seeing French and German events through English eyes. The situation is, or should be, different when the historian writes, not in a foreign language but in a second language. But still, it may be difficult to use the English language while purging it entirely o f English values. Gross emotional and linguistic interference may be eliminated, but not so the subtle variety deeply embedded in the language. M any national h istories are a conscious celebration o f the race, and some may argue that the use o f an indigenous language would heighten such celebration.

In Nigeria, English is not a foreign language but a second 48

language. However, it must be admitted that it is an inchoate second language mastered by a very small minority o f the population, and a foreign language to the vast majority. In such circumstances, it becomes difficult to write a true national history which has a maximum mobilizing and integrative effect. At this point, the solution would appear to be not to start sp o n so rin g th e w ritin g o f N ig erian histo ry in a combination o f the indigenous languages o f the country (which may be a distant ideal), but rather to make English truly a second language, one which has been truly domesticated or nativized and sufficiently infused with the Nigerian world view and genius. In that way, language use w ould be maximally aiding the two other members o f the triad in a bid lor enduring national development.

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