The Attitude Lounge with Kodwo Brumpon: You’re your language
“If you want people to understand you, speak their language.” – African proverb
How is life synthesized, but on the tongues of human beings. Life found its meaning when it found language. That is how important language is to our everyday lives. It is the words that give meaning to life, because life itself was birthed out of words. Many of us do not give thought to language because we have it.
Language is so a part of us, we have taken no pains to assess its significance. Communicating with others is so normal, and sometimes so boring, we never give a thought to language. It is just one of those things that happens.
But language is an interesting instrument. It enchants us to care about the world, and entertains us to live. It explains the world to us; enthrals us with its mysteries, and elevates our aspirations.
These are the very things we do when we communicate with one another. Language is the basis of our kinships, and expression of our identity. It forges friendships, communities and societies. It gives us an understanding of what was; and what is. And invokes our curiosity about what is yet to come. Can you imagine life with language?
You would think, with a role this important, many would study and appreciate the dynamics of language. Sadly, the opposite is true. We have become a people who have ears to hear, and hear not. The surprising majority amongst us, never even give it a thought. Today, we are challenged to understand that we need our language. We should embrace it as one of the essential essence that fragrances our lives.
All of our lives is based on language; whether spoken, written or acted. It grants us the keys to freedom. We would not be who we are, if we had no language. In all honesty, we need language more than it needs us. And so we have to stop visualising it only as an instrument of communication.
Language makes us who we are. Eudora Welty writing about friendship touched on language. And she argued that “it can be safe to say that when we learned to speak to, and listen to, rather than to strike or be struck by, our fellow human beings, we found something worth keeping alive, worth possessing, for the rest of time.” This is how powerfully language affects us.
It allows us to relate to one another with civility. And it makes us understand not only what happens to us, but also that whatever happens to us happens to others. This gives us an insight into the lives of others, and to them an insight into our lives. It makes us witnesses of life, forcing us to bear one another’s joys and burdens.
Language is inherently a magnet. Like the magnetic fields of the universe, it draws its own power independently. And draws us to discover, perceive and celebrate life’s intricacies, with a wide variety of speeches, stories, poems, essays, etc. Language is a treasury lying in the open.
Many see it, and knows not its worth. It is one kind of a treasure that evolves with the times. And in every era, those who discover its worth freely share with others without fear or favour. However because many of us have no appreciation of its worth, we trample upon it.
Our relationship with language, is nothing else than a relationship with ourselves. If you listen to the choice of words in a person’s language, you can gauge how that individual values him or herself. Language exposes our personalities. The richer the language use of an individual, the higher that person dignifies him or herself.
This means we must take time to groom our language use, like the manner a cat grooms itself. The key to an appreciation of language is gotten only through a love for it. A love of language affords us, a care about it, and this energises us to study about it and know. It gives us an understanding of how language is responsible for us, and why we should be responsible for it.
Language enables us with the greatest tool of liberation, expression. To be able to express your thoughts for the world to understand, is the most sought-after capability. It grants us the guts to put any situation in a positive or negative light without changing the factual significance of the reality.
It affords us the ability to recognize the levels of agreement or disagreement at work in any exchange of views. Such is the wield of power, language has. It is language that makes the pen mightier than the sword. The words of language are seeds. Whether spoken or written, they sprout into shrubs. Those we nurture grow into trees; whiles those we do not attend to, wither and die off.
How language become the spine of our essence is not as important as we appreciating it well enough to make the most out of it. Many of us lack colourful characters because of our limited use of language.
The time has come to reverse such limitations. We must take the time and trouble to learn about language functions and uses, so that we can use them to improve upon ourselves. Language is the breath of greatness, of poise and of elegance. Let us be wise about it.
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Kodwo Brumpon is an executive coach at Polygon Oval, a forward-thinking Pan African management consultancy and social impact firm driven by data analytics, with a focus on understanding the extraordinary potential and needs of organisations and businesses to help them cultivate synergies, that catapults into their strategic growth, and certifies their sustainability.
Comments, suggestions, and requests for talks and training should be sent to him at kodwo@polygonoval.co
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