LOCAL PARLANCE AND PIDGIN: THE PALM-WINE DRINKARD ON CAMPUS

One African writer who I admire most is the Nigerian author of nightmarish and fabulous tales, Amos tutuola. Amos Tutuola was said to have written his masterpieces of fantasy in a naïve, strange young English not of this world. The innocent interesting writer of stories borrowed mostly from materials from his native folklore who was mocked by both western and African critics for his defective use of the English language is now an acknowledged classic. The furor and controversy that surrounded Tutuola was how he irreligiously used the English language without regard to grammar and syntax. He saw the English language as a means to projecting his surrealist halve remembered tales of the fireside to the world in a language he has no mastery nor command and was un abashed about it. When I first heard about the emergence of a true primitive classic from west Africa who have written interesting tales receiving rave reviews from the west and even captivating the fancy and whacking the interest of the poet Dylan Thomas, I was compelled to read Tutuola’s classic the palm wine drinkard.

The novel begins as follows.

I was a palm-wine drinkard since I was a boy of ten years of age. I had no other work than to drink palm-wine in my life. In those days, we did not know of other money, except cowries. So that everything was very cheap and my father was the richest man in our town.

My father got eight children and I was the eldest among them, all of the rest were hard workers, but I myself was an expert palm-wine drinkard. I was drinking palm wine from morning till night and from night till morning. By that time, I could not drink ordinary water at all except palm-wine.

But when my father noticed that I could not do any work more than to drink, he engaged an expert palm-wine tapster for me; he had no other work more than to tap palm-wine everyday.

So my father gave me a palm-tree farm which was nine miles square and it contained 560,000 palm-trees, and the palm-wine tapster was tapping one hundred and fifty kegs of palm-wine every morning, but before 2 O’clock pm, I would have drunk all of it; after that he would go and tap another 75 kegs in the evening which I would be drinking till morning. So my friends were uncountable that time and they were drinking palm wine with me from morning till a late hour in the night. But when my palm-wine tapster completed the period of 15 years that he was tapping the palm-wine for me, then my father died suddenly, and when it was the 8th month after my
father had died, the tapster went to the palm-tree farm on a Sunday evening to tap palm-wine for me. When he reached the farm, he climbed one of the tallest palm-trees to tap palm-wine but as he was tapping on, he fell down unexpectedly and died at the foot of the palm-tree as a result of injuries. As I was waiting for him to bring the palm-wine, when I saw that he did not return on time, because he was not keeping me for long like that before, then I called two of my friends to accompany me to the farm. When we reached the farm, we began to look at every palm-tree, after a while we found him under the palm-tree where he fell and died.


Tutuola, though handicapped by the English language nevertheless was able to present with naïve alacrity the few words and idioms he knew into finished works of art! Combination of pidgin and incorrect usages of words made him a classic because his dilemma was a psychological one.

I referenced Amos tutuola here to pinpoint a pinprick in our education system. The mania that has descended on campus and not only made it a laughing stock, but as a sham institution that breeds all that it claims to weed out from the society. The advent of pidgin on campus. Students irreverent and erratic use of the English language is surprisingly unpardonable. The use of vulgar language is now the norm on campus. Students of the premier university pride on their ability to speak effectively a language that is not a product of this world nor could ever be imagined to exist by a sane person and they speak it with gusto and relish. . The adverse effect of the use of the pidgin that the promoters of the shameful language nay shameful terms its limit their scope of reasoning and mars their fluency in normal English. One wonders what motivates students to indulge in such a slothful activity. They flaunt it on campus and have the moral courage to tell the society that they are at the forefront of the premier university pursuing higher education. Everywhere on campus that two or three guys would meet would brew the abominable language. Some have the defective and filthy flare for improving the gutter language that have earned them the waste products of linguistics. Some are so skillful with it that they are able to interlace it with words from our local parlance and vernacular.

They parade campus with their language which is a mark of how shallow and weak-minded they are and their inability to grasp the slightest complexities of academia. One wonders how these students view and understand language. For them language is not for communication of ideas but projection of idle thoughts. Base chatter, prattle of the unwary. Unnecessary jabber.

When one delves in to the background of such students, who are not only tainting the walls of the academy but also insulting the university, one woulshocked that these are people who have gone through the educational system for more than fifteen years and are still proceeding in it without shame

A grand institution of grand and solid academic excellence! Haunt of renowned and eminent scholars, educationists and academicians! Every where on campus if one is serious to know something concerning knowledge either directly or indirectly relating to a course the person is pursuing is sure to get a volunteer to explain things to him. Books are everywhere on campus. Everything that happens on campus is one way or the other connected with education. The only medium one can use to articulate his or her views is the English language and there are numerous lecturers and academicians on campus that one wouldn’t actually comprehend how a new breed of students sprung up speaking a different brand of English language that baffle even the most distinguished linguist

The pidgin concocted by idle brains on campus which has become evil spells sinking the learning towers have even found its way finally to the lecturers. They present it on their papers for degrees. It is said that most of the students cannot express themselves in an ordinary standard English.

What does it presage when more than ordinary students of a higher institution like legon find it difficult to express themselves in a language they have spent their lifetime imitating to outdo the Whiteman?