New Year Edition of Language Agenda: Beware of the R

The only difference between the two words is the "R." We are referring to "curricula" and "curriculaR." While both of them are morphologically traceable to "curriculum", "curriculaR" is an adjective.

Contrarily, "curricula" is a noun. It is the plural form of "curriculum." It belongs to the list of Latin originated words, whose plurality could be determined by the addition of "R." It is instructive to state that "curriclum" could also accept the morpheme "S" to become plural. Therefore, the plural form "curriculums" too is acceptable in modern standard English.

CURRICULUM means a set of courses or subjects constituting a level of academic pursuit or an area of specialization. Examples are CURRICULUM OF JOURNALISM as an area of specialization and CURRICULUM OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL as a level of academic pursuit.

Below are illustrative sentences:

● The CURRICULA of African Studies and of Mole-Dagbon History at Batang Yili College of Liberal Arts should include topics on Abudu-Andani Unity.

In this sentence, "CURRICULA" is a a plural noun functioning as the subject.

● Abudu-Andani Reconciliation as a topic is part of the CURRICULAR contents of Conflict Studies at Dagbon State University.

In this sentence, "CURRICULAR" is an adjective describing the noun "contents."

Brothers and sisters, as you enjoy this discourse, join us in prayers for UNITY in Dagbon, PEACE in Ghana, DEVELOPMENT in Africa, and SECURITY in the world in 2019.

We wish you all a prosperous New Year.

Dedication: This discourse is dedicated to the Editorial Team and Management of Modernghana.com for their commitment to journalistic excellence and linguistic education. May the Lord grant them the best in the New Year.

Dr. Abubakar Mohammed Marzuq

Lecturer, University of Applied Management, Ghana Campus, McCarthy Hill, Accra.