2024-11-05
48 分钟Ghanaian journalist Justice Baidoo is teaching his two young boys how to speak the ancient African language of Ahanta. He home schools them with lessons several times a week in an effort to keep the indigenous language alive in a continent where many are disappearing due to the over dominance of English and French, and in recent years the added power of American culture through mass media, online and through mobile phones. He hears how locals are trying to revive Ahanta by setting up a radio station and running regular dedicated church services attracting a one-thousand-strong congregation, before travelling across Ghana to hear people speaking the endangered language of Animere in the village of Kunda.
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I am Justus Beidou, a journalist based in Accra, Ghana.
As a father of two young boys, I'm on a mission to teach them a hunter, the language for my village in southwestern Ghana that is slowly dying.
My inspiration came from the days during my master's degree in international journalism studies at the University of Cardiff in Wales.
It was the first time I had been to the UK and everything was new and different.
The one thing that struck me the most was that not everyone in Britain spoke English.
The next train to depart from Platform 0 will be the O800.
Great.
As I would learn, all announcements were made in English and then in Welsh, the indigenous language of the 3 million people who live in that part of the UK.
But in my one year in Cardiff, I never heard anyone who actually spoke Welsh, though across the country there are about 8 to 900,000 Welsh speakers.
Anyway, it got me thinking about my life back in Ghana, and it opened my eyes to the fact that global languages like English, especially American English, and French dominate so much.
And there's a real urgency to preserve our own linguistic heritage.
Mouth, you never taught us.
Mouse, you say you teach us.
For the next hour, join me on a personal journey.
This is the documentary Tongue and Talk Keeping Languages Alive in Africa from the BBC World Service.
Okay, so let's do the numbers.