Nana Kobina Nketsiah V, Paramount Chief of Essikado Traditional Area, has advocated the use of local languages at functions and public places to enable the ordinary Ghanaian to be part of the daily activities that govern society.
He said: “I am surprised that many years after independence we still use the oppressors’ language as our main medium of communication to the detriment of the unschooled”.
Nana Nketsiah V, also an anthropologist and lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, says Ghana has lots of local languages with respect to the various ethnic groupings and that communication, particularly at functions, must be conducted in the local language pertaining to that setting.
The paramount chief alluded to a scenario where children came home from school, and all they spoke was the Queen’s language to the neglect of their mother tongues.
Nana Nketsiah has, therefore, entreated Ghanaians to emulate the examples of China and Japan among other countries who prefer to communicate in their local languages for an interpreter to translate.
