In Search Of the Lost Tongue
Benson Chukwueke 1971 (Owerri)
They journeyed back to the past
Digging deep into archives vast
Day and night they laboured on
Unearthing bones from ancient tombs
In search of the lost tongue
The mother tongue of Urhobo
The rope that bound the people as one
Lost in the rubble of Ughelli
Under the wreckage of the colonial masters
In the ultimate search
To recover this precious artifact
And to reclaim their native charm
What they found has putrefied
Foul pidgin flying out of the whole
From the mouth of their offsprings
English Pidgin, full of vile expressions
Has adulterated their true mother tongue
The tongue with which elders conjured words divine
Has lost its power in undignified slangs
About this poem
My friend Judith, in trying to teach her children the original Urhobo language, has found different adulterations, English-pidgin and Urhobo-pidgin dominated the way the modern natives communicates around Ughelli area of Delta State Nigeria.
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