ON LANGUAGE AS A TOOL FOR DEVELOPMENT

1. Introduction
Any country that intends to stand out among other nations of the world and to be able to assert without being afraid that they are enlightened should be capable of pointing out also that they are well-developed nation. Now, this bold proclamation cannot be made by all nations in the manner we are discussing here, if they do not want to refer to this now and then in their daily discourses. But there comes a time in any nation's history that they would be required through circumstances in the world to be able to face this challenge. The challenge to ask themselves what have they accomplished so far in the world in terms of development of their environments and furthermore, development in the form of contribution to the larger society in the world. Development is therefore essential to every nation that not only wants progress in the overall lifeclasss for its citizens, but also to boost the country in question's image at home among its neighbours and also abroad. As language is an ingredient of the progress in this direction, then the manner it is used by the citizens and how it is furnished and maintained for the appropriate use of later generation should be guarded. Language is a supreme tool for development and as such it should be given important place in the society to help maintain its rich culture, artefacts, and other essential elements in the overall advancement in the country. It is because of this that I have deliberately resolved to elevate the issue of language to the country and especially to a people constantly confronted with other important matters that aid to conceal this essential topic that also deserves the attention from the masses.

The objective of this paper is to sound the warning that for the sake of the young and the future children of this country, one language such as the Ashanti one, should be introduced into the country to gain autonomy that will eventually help the country. The preliminary use of this language by the Ghanaian students as aids to comprehend certain mechanisms of teaching in the schools from the elementary to the university, will prepare the country to possess a better self-esteem for its children. This will consequently provide them a higher I.Q. and higher productivity that will also commence the possessing of the country one people with a common destiny.

2. What We Have Suggested Earlier
What we have suggested in the previous articles that dealt exclusively with this topic was that the translation of all textbooks that are employed in the elementary right up to the university education level should be made in Ashanti language. This, which should be done preliminary in the interest of the 70% of the population that speak this language prior to their entering the first year, is to enable prospective students to have access to them. These textbooks shall be there at the general bookshops so that those students that intend to have a deeper understanding of what is being taught could go and buy them and use them as aids. They shall be kept in the school library as well as public libraries to enable the poor students to have access to them. We have even suggested at some point that teachers should have the freedom to interrupt class or lectures to explain a difficult mechanism in the language of Ashanti provided above to help students comprehend clearly what they find it very arduous to understand.

As part of the contextualisation process of education in Ghana, we should be capable to making certain changes that we feel will enhance the ability of our children to perform well in the classroom and later to contribute well into the development in the country. We do these things without allowing impediments from outside to block our view to consider the interests of our children and our country.

3. Suggestion
Ghana is a sovereign state that considers the rudiments of democracy very important to the citizens. A suggestion that has already been made in connection with education is to take into consideration the people that live in the country and what these changes shall one day bring to the citizens and the country. We do not initiate something in connection with development in the country to please other persons or interest groups. Nor do we begin to consider these things and the implications they will have for other foreigners outside the country who do not belong to us in the first place. First, we think about our own children and their future development and what these changes will bring to the country and the progress it wants to accomplish as a whole. We have neglected some of these things just because we also, as grown-ups think too much for our own good and what we shall gain for the interim. It is high time we began to think in accomplishing something for our children than to concentrate only on those good things that are exclusive for ourselves in the country. This suggestion is important and, in fact, it is a legitimate demand that any government, no matter the promises that have been made and fulfilled in the future and if this is neglected, shall find it very difficult to get the continuing attention of the people.

4. Educational Policy
The Ghanaian people are intelligent and reliable, and it seems that it is only the leaderships that have not comported themselves well with regards to this matter being discussed. It has taken many years for this realisation to come to the fore simply because the nation experienced turbulence in the citizens' political pursuits for many decades since independence. Though many changes have been made in connection with the educational policies in the country, these changes in the manner students imbibe knowledge have not been touched properly because we usually think of what others in other countries are doing and we try to imitate blindly. It goes without saying that Ghanaians have not made any original strikes in the area of education how they can become original and able to develop faster and compete fairly with students outside elsewhere in the world. Though we have the capability to excel as all others in the world, we usually sit there and allow others to impose things on us because we are not sure of ourselves. The national policy of education should consider first, the translation of the main textbooks in the primary, secondary, and tertiary education levels into the Ashanti language as the original language. These should preliminary be employed as aids in classrooms, and later in the future of modern Ghana to become a single original language that all instructions in the educational institutions and examinations will be conducted. English language will be diligently studied as well, and can be used home or abroad when it is necessary.

5. Advantages are many
The proposition that has been put forward above has many advantages, and though the advantages are self-evident and require no strong argumentation, I should like to expatiate on the following advantages:

a. Efficiency in Schools
It has been shown abroad and all over the world that the use of the original language (blood language, flows in the veins) contributes enormously to efficiency in schools. Except those who are bias and have something to loose who shall preach against this noble idea. But for those who are prepared to open their hearts clean and observe meticulously the usefulness of this method, they shall find solace in it. Both the teachers that work with the different subjects, personnel, and the students that attend classes or lectures, they all shall testify to the point that this method is the best. Human beings are reflecting beings and as such when people cannot rationalise and weigh constantly the problems facing them, it becomes pathetic. The ability to think and find solutions to problems has today made those supposed to be the weaker persons the strongest in the world. This is all because they find time to think and reflect about things that concern others without even thinking about what they, as individuals shall gain from a venture in the interim. Lack of efficiency in the system stems from the fact that we still grapple with a foreign language that we shall never become proficient despite all the years spent to study it before we die. It is only stupidity that makes us to hang on with another person's language when we have incredible number of languages around that can be developed and be used.

b. Carrying out Responsibilities
Whether we like it or not, it is the manner we carry out responsibilities and accomplish them at schools and later in the lager society that reflects on the advancement a country has made in the world. If a student cannot write good essay or read properly these automatically affect his or her performance at school and that also affects consequently the future work in public. The same applies to the politician that cannot express himself or herself in public very well. To employ the use of the original language to conduct all education and public endeavours, it stimulates individuals to perform well since the number of hours to be spent in the library and prepare become lessen. The importance of the use of Ashanti language as instruction language and the conduction of examinations in this particular language will help Ghanaian students to do excellently well in all fields in the manner they shall write reports or argue in the parliament.

A student needs to utilise a language well to learn and comprehend a subject matter. What he/she has imbibed is supposed to help him/her build exactly what must be accomplished as an assignment. Inability to follow this guideline due to poor comprehension of language can result in poor knowledge, building, housing, bridging, and etc. So a question can be posed; why cannot we build as others or develop as others or it is only because we are poor? The truth is that poor knowledge of language can impede not only progress in life as a whole but also poor performance of these technical building projects that require minute comprehension ability of those intricate parts of these projects.

c. Higher I.Q
The controversy about race and intelligence is easily removed by the introduction of the original language in schools. If this overture did not help others, it is because there are hidden problems, which were not addressed before the introduction of this programme. These should not make us conclude that the same will happen to us, as a people. If a Ghanaian student uses the Ashanti language to conduct his studies and receives his examination through this means he shall perform well just like his counterparts in Japan or Britain. This shall immediately remove the stigma that has been cherished by others that Africans are less intelligent. To be frank the reason while Africans have not developed to the standard of the Europeans brothers is first, because of poor leadership, and secondly, the manipulative work of the West all the time to disorganise them through the manner they trade with them. They can always buy the product that shall help you develop cheap so that you do not get enough capital, which happened to Nkrumah. This is when they have discovered that a specific country has a leader that is dynamic and could help them succeed at last. They can also through different means divert the attention through wars or conflicts, which they had succeeded in doing for many years. Many Africans states and their leaders do not have a vision of what they want to accomplish, and that is dangerous because then one shall always be swayed from whatever it is given to one to do.

d. Sharp and Intelligence
The use of the original language shall give the opportunity of the student to become sharp and intelligent in such a manner that he would not be deceived or manipulated easily. The original language equips the student to be able to catch up easily and be able to detect and use his own talent very well in the society. It is through the original language that a student can detect easily his natural talent and then pursues it to a higher level. Without this many educated people can only detect it when they are around 40 years or more which would be too late to work with it or develop it. The study of another country's language consumes time and it impedes original thinking as the individual is confronted with all manners of grammatical problems that cannot be surmounted easily. But it takes shorter period to study a language that one already speaks. This helps students to get serious in studies early in life. In the West because of the insistence of using the blood language, many students at the age of 25 would have achieved whatever they are talented in doing. As it is has been frequently seen with all those who obtained Nobel Prize in the sciences that almost all of these fellows accomplished their achievements at an early age.

e. Adequate Use of Resources
Africans are rich in both natural and mineral resources and yet we cannot mine them ourselves but instead have to depend on others for doing it for us. With the use of the blood language any machine can be developed here in Ghana because once the formula or the information has been acquired, it is possible to gather the talented individuals who shall spend little time as a team and do it themselves. The blood language provides students the knowledge of accomplishing things themselves in their environments. It equips them with the capability to have knowledge of the things being developed in their own language already at an early age. This means the threatening thing is therefore removed, as they comprehend these things in their own language. Only naive and ignorant individuals shall then allow someone to come from abroad to perform a function if they are written in their own language and they have students or experts who can do them. Educated professionals should be able to do all the things people are doing outside the country because they have the knowledge and they have been instructed in their own language to do it.

f. Self-esteem and Self-confidence
The major problem people that use other nations' language face are their self-esteems and self-confidence in carrying out something or accomplishing a task. Many students fail exams just because they did not comprehend the questions provided to them. They scratch their heads just to comprehend and later to be able to think concerning how they could answer the questions. If a nation such as Ghana wants to have their self-confidence and be proud as well, then they need to use the language that they do not have to strive to comprehend and have discourses with. Self-confidence is important for human beings because it helps the motivation of people to be capable of facing a terrible situation or working to solve a major problem. The psychologist would tell you that people and for that matter nations that have succeeded in this world all have superb self-confidence in the manner they carry out responsibilities and comport themselves. When you see an African student, especially the pupils in the elementary schools, you could see immediately how these children answer questions put to them that they lack self-confidence. And this affects them in a high degree how they develop to become responsible adults. They know the answer but they find it very hard to express themselves with this foreign language. Ghanaians should understand that if they use the Ashanti language in their day to day carrying out of responsibilities, they should accomplish much especially if they have to write and practice documentation with this same language.

g. Enlightenment
Without the reversion to their various languages, the Europeans who are our twin brothers would not have made it so easily. Probably, they would be struggling even now as us concerning how to build good buildings, good roads, and feed themselves. I would like to inform you in no uncertain terms that I have deliberately made considerable number of hours of observation and the result or conclusion I made to myself is that the blood language helps their intelligence at the magnitude of 70% and only 30% does science contribute to their intelligence enormity. Though the latter 30% have to be there in order for the 70% to be capable of functioning better or adequately with them.

Additional ingredient that the blood language accomplishes is that it allows those people that have not obtained education to function better in the society just like those who possess education. They would be able to function in the society just like a Secondary School leaving certificate holder does in present Ghana. You would be surprised but it is certainly possible for someone with a leaving certificate from the Elementary School to function as an excellent politician even among us. This person can be a Prime Minister or President of a country and would be able to perform this function better than most people who possess university education with English used as the main instruction method. This means that with the use of the Ashanti language, the development of the Secondary School leaver will equally be higher like a university graduate, a graduate will be higher like a professor, and then a professor shall be much higher in his development and achievement. This means, productivity will increase in the Ghanaian society.

6. Scientific Achievement
All countries that changed to their blood languages excelled in sciences and other fields, and I certainly believe that Ghana will do the same. It was seen with the Ancient Greeks, Arabs, Babylonians, Incas, and currently with the English, Germans, Swedish, French, Japanese, Chinese, and etc. In particular, I have seen that the use of Ashanti language has a potential just like the Greek language in the manner one makes analysis in subjects with few words as compared to other languages that employ long words in their analyses. In science, we work with concepts and so it is capable for any country that wants to excel in these fields to use its own blood language and then it will help the citizens to be capable of working with the symbols that these fields usually employ. Once a person has adopted his own language, then it is easy to manufacture many technical things and even develop complicated machines once a person has acquired the formula of how they were formed originally. Because of this, those that use their own language are capable of developing all those things that seem to capture our imagination without inviting people from outside. I believe that the change of this language to Ashanti language should be able to help us put the man on the moon in the years before us, if it is plan well and we have the resources. This means the people should be motivated to accept this with gladness. Just do not listen to those who have no interest of the nation at heart and only want money and material riches without considering the need of our children, their learning, and how to manufacture things ourselves to help our standard of living.

7. Conclusions
Ghana has come a long way forward that we need to make the right changes that will stimulate the people to think and become members of the nations that create and manufacture. There is no time to waste to spend so many years learning to understand someone's language before we could begin learning at school. In the end we do not make any tangible progress in the world community and also our own societies. The time has come that we take a step forward to tackle those problems that had for a long time impeded our progress in development.

When Bismarck of Germany set out to unify modern Germany, there were a number of non-German people living in the country: some Danes, a considerable larger number of Poles, and most significant for the future, many Frenchmen in Alsace and Lorraine. But Bismarck did his best to unify all these people from very important neighbouring countries, as they had no choice when they decided to stay behind to learn German language as their new language. The people of Ghana, therefore, should not care so much so far as it is the dominant language Akan-Ashanti that is being introduced. Though we have respect for those that moved to join us later from neighbouring countries, we must understand that it is the interest of the majority of the people that we need to protect while not neglecting the interest of the minority as well. No politician or a group of people that champion this should feel guilty if Bismarck the Great did not feel guilty in unifying Germany by including the Danish people, Polish people, French people, and many others. Today, Germany has become one of the Giants of the world concerning industrialisation and educational achievement.

Ghana must and should use the Ashanti language for the country that has 70% of the population that speak and understand this popular Akan language.

References
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Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, (1776). The Spirit of the Laws. Vol. 1., Tranl. Thomas Nugent. 1777. London: J. Nourse.