RE: INCREASE YOUR IQ BY LEARNING A LANGUAGE
That's a shame, I reckon it would be cool to speak a Western African language. Are some of the Western African languages similar or are they vastly different?
I think I can speak a lot more Thai than I can understand, so I totally get the fact that you can understand Yoruba but not speak it. That's a very common problem for Thai people trying to learn English as well.
Hopefully you can go back there for a while solely on an educational basis and take classes or something. If it's a part of your heritage then it would be very pride inducing to be able to communicate with people from where your ancestors are from. My mum was adopted, so there's half of me that is completely unaccounted for. I know if I found out I was half German or something I'd love to immerse myself in that culture and find out where I was from. I have Indian family (although I have no Indian blood in me) and when I went to India 7 years ago I was so excited to go back to where my uncles and aunties were from, even ringing them and finding out where specifically they grew up. It would have been even better to meet distant relatives there who didn't speak English and be able to communicate with them...
I literally have no idea! I don't think so, I've heard Ghanaian being spoken and I don't recognise it at all!
You're right about the heritage thing, especially as I feel Yoruba will die out fairly soon. Everyone in Nigeria speaks English, and I asked my nieces and nephews if they speak Yoruba to each other.
They told me that they only really tended to speak it with older people, and they kind of mixed and matched with each other, though mainly they communicate with English; a bit sad really.
Cg
That is really sad. It's nice that people can all understand each other, but a language is part of your history, and if I was Nigerian I would be proud to be able to speak Yoruba. Being from Watford I'm proud that I know a lot of cockney rhyming slang!
I only asked about the Western Africa languages because a lot of the European languages are either Latin, Slavic or Nordic based, so it would be interesting to learn if any of the Western African languages originated from a base form. Two years ago I planned on travelling counter clockwise all around Africa, and if I do ever go back to that plan it will be really cool to be able to throw a few local words at them and shock them!
It is sad you're right, I think when you're in the country you take stuff for granted :-) I love a bit of rhyming; well mockney at least!
I think you're probably right re the West African languages, but because I know so little about them I can't really comment. Though I can usually tell where an African comes from by listening to his accent when he's speaking English :-)
Yeah if you do go there, I can give you the odd choice word . . . although the weird thing is, the best language you can learn is pidgen English. It's weird, you can pretty much understand what they say, because it is broken English, however if you answer back in your normal accent they won't understand you!
I found this hilarious when I went to Nigeria the first time; I remember asking in a market "how much is that football?"
The guy stared at me blankly and looked at my nephew, who then said; "E gowan know ow mush de football eh?"
I was astounded that he understood that and not me, seeing as I could understand him! Big lolz :-)
Cg
My family are from North London originally, so I do find myself going full on London mode when I'm around Londoners. I'm even ashamed to say I sometimes throw my own cockney rhyming slang in conversations without realising. I once told someone that something cost me a Caitlyn Jenner, which earned me a completely baffled look...
It's funny how that works. I do that with Thai people now; a lot of the words are the same in English but you have to pronunciate every syllable and the tones are all over the place.
For example: SA-tor-ber-EEE!
I love that little anecdote, it genuinely made me smile. I once got an English friend of mine when we were drunk to say to the Italian receptionist at the hotel in Italian, "I want to buy your children, how much is the boy?"