You remember Professor Alex Igbineweka? Oh… I mean Alex Igbineweka, the Guosa language creator? To the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) retiree, America is, indeed, a land of opportunity. And America’s sobriquet, ‘God’s Own Country’, proved real when Boston University, Massachusetts handed to him an invitation after retirement to teach international community Guosa language, “because the Nigerian government and its language experts won’t listen or give me opportunity to grow on my linguistic ingenuity,” as he puts it.
While commending the American government for providing him opportunity to grow his linguistic talent, he berated the Linguistics Association of Nigeria for not showing seriousness or looking inwards. He lamented that the country has not been able to achieve what is needed in the Nigerian lingua-franca programmes and policies. “Yet, it is bent on signing up Chinese and foreign languages into the school curriculum at the expense of our indigenous languages, and we want Nigeria to unite? What a shame we are hoping against hopes!” he exclaimed.
He said that he was inspired to create Guosa language as a lingua franca for the promotion of peace, unity, identity, political stability, arts, culture and science among Nigeria and the ECOWAS region adding that the language has been accredited by the American government but efforts for same in Nigeria proved abortive.
“I started dreaming of the Guosa language when I was about six years old in 1956. Thereafter, I started collating the different Nigerian languages and dialectal words as the building blocks of the language from 1958 to early 1960s. The first book of Guosa language was published in 1981 and the latest Guosa language dictionary was published in 2023 and available on Amazon.com, Berns & Nobles, eBay.com and other international bookshops including the Library of Congress, The White House Washington DC. In all, it took me more than 60 years to compile the publication. So, Guosa language is the language of unity for Nigeria and the ECOWAS member nation which must be encouraged and promoted by the people and government of Nigeria and ECOWAS because, a tree cannot make a forest.”
The US based scholar and member of World Language Creation Society (LCS) said he has written more than eight books on Guosa language in addition to endless Wikipedias written by Europeans and Americans Linguists.
He listed some of the publications on Guosa language and, some more published by foreign language experts, including Founder, Language Creation Society, Joseph Windsor; Dr. Wilson Jenson and Chair, British Interlingua Society, Peter F. Gopsill, among others.
According to him some of his books are: Teach Yourself Guosa Language Book I: Express Publication, 1981; Teach Yourself Guosa Language Book II: Guosa Educational, Scientific & Cultural Inst., Inc., 2000; The Complete Dictionary of Guosa Language: Guosa Educational, Scientific & Cultural Inst., Inc., 2007; The Complete Dictionary of Guosa Language, 1st Revised Edition: Guosa Educational, Scientific and Cultural Inst., Inc., 2009; The Complete Dictionary of Guosa Language, 2nd Revised Edition: Universe World Publishers, USA, 2019; The Complete Dictionary of Guosa Language, 3rd Revised Edition, Great Writers Media, USA, 2023; The Handbook of Guosa Language Book I, 2018 and The Handbook of Guosa Language, Book II, 2020 e t c.
“There are equally Wikipedias written by European and American linguists, including Caro De Sedega – Guosa Wikifandon, Guosa Wikitongues, Guosa – Simple English Wikipedia, the free Guosa encyclopedia, Guosa Wikidata, and Guosa Wikipedia in several West African languages, Guosa – Wiktionary; e.t.c, he listed, pointing out that: “the Nigerian and West African linguists are way behind in the Guosa language research, development and documentation. Instead, they held on “dead on arrival” defunct Michael West English Dictionary rather than teaming up with us to move the nations forward linguistically.”
On how the journey to developing the language began, he explained: “I started my elementary education at St. Stephen’s School, East Circular Road, Benin City, Nigeria in the late 1950s and finished at the Lagos City Council School, Okesuna, Lagos in the late 1960s. My early education was longer than usual because I was living with my late uncle and guardian father, his royal majesty Omo N’oba N’edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Erediauwa who was then the District Administrator of the former Eastern Region of Nigeria. He was transferred to Lagos on May 22, 1965 when the Nigerian Civil War was very imminent.
“He took me along with his biological children and that was how I found myself in Lagos.
I had the opportunity to learn Igbo and other elementary Eastern Nigerian languages while at Enugu because most of the house help employed by my late uncle were from different parts of the Eastern region, such as the Efik, Ibibio, Kalabari, etc. I was quick to learn their languages and dialects in addition to the existing nine Nigerian languages broadcast by the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). While in Lagos, I attended the Cosmopolitan Evening College, now defunct and obtained 5 “O” level papers in the West African General Certificate of Education (GCE). I also attended the Federal Training Centre in Kaduna, where I got my professional secretarial certificates of 120 words per minute in shorthand dictation.
“While in training, I used the opportunity to learn some Hausa, Kanuri, Tiv and other linguistic orientations from the northern part of Nigeria. With my secretarial proficiency I was employed by the Nigerian Army, S&T Brigade Apapa. I worked there for few years, and left for the Nigerian Navy, NNS Beecroft as a Typist/Stenographer. I was also employed by the Nigerian Television Authority in the mid-1980s as a Confidential Secretary and rose to the position of a Principal Secretary until I retired and left Nigeria to the United States of America on the invitation of Boston University, Massachusetts to lecture the international community about the Guosa language creation, because the Nigerian government and her language experts won’t listen to me or give me the opportunity to grow on my ingenuity. Thanks to America, the land of endless opportunities for providing the opportunity.”
He noted that his first invitation to the United States was in 1988, pointing out that this was followed nine years later by another from the University of California, Berkeley and the Stanford University both in California.
“And that was how I became a Californian and the U.S. permanent resident to date. In America, I obtained a bachelor’s degree, and MBA and a PhD in business administration. I am currently a PhD student at the Gambit School of Business in London.
“On the whole, language evolution and creation is my talent, my inspiration and my stock in trade. This is my natural inherent from my grandfather, late Pa Okpevbo N’Erua, who was one of the Oba of Benin’s chief medicine men. He was the spiritual language communicator and interpreter between the living and the dead at Erua community, Uhunmwode Local Council of Edo State in his days. For me, one does not have to be a PhD holder to be a scientific language creator. It is an inspiration and natural gift from those who sits above us and inherent in my ancestral root,” he said.
The don, however, appealed to Nigeria government to come to his aid in the development and teaching of Guosa language for her linguistic unity and the thrills of the language. “If only our leaders will humble themselves, put down egos or the English language grammatical camouflaging theories to learn, it will facilitate communication and commerce in Nigeria.
“I appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and others to come to my aid. I can’t do it all by myself, a tree can’t make a forest. Nigeria is more divided today than it was when I began to advocate for a new lingua franca for the country’s unity because the leaders won’t listen to me, probably, because I am not a millionaire. It’s like you do not have any intelligence, if you are not rich. Guosa language is the final panacea and the centerpiece of Nigerians and the ECOWAS unity.”
He equally explained how he partnered the University of Abuja for the yearly Guosa language Day. “A few years ago, the University of Abuja, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), took the lead by offering Guosa language certificates upon successful completion of its Guosa language vocational studies. For me, one does not need an English or Chinese certification to qualify as a Guosa linguist; it is from the ECOWAS, for the ECOWAS and by the ECOWAS. One can have PhD in Chinese language, Italian language, Interslavic language, and PhD ‘Otohen’ in Guosa language is not a bad idea.
“The Nigerian University Commission can approve the award of Guosa language degrees and titles to whosoever qualified and passed the board’s examination including the whites, tourists, visitors etc. Bob Marley said: “emancipate yourself from mental slavery”. It is regrettable that we always want foreigners to give us our human rights while we sit around condemning our own ingenuity, talents and creativity.
“There’s need for both theoretical, the natural and the unnatural language experts to work together to make Nigeria great. But unfortunately, the Nigerian government and her linguistic employees have limited their knowledge to the English grammatical classrooms theories. Sometimes, we need to step out of history to make history by taking the road less traveled.
“We can’t be doing the same thing repeatedly and expect miracles to happen. The western world is always inventing and advancing 24/7. So, the ‘Collaboration’ with the University of Abuja is the action of working with a group of people and organisations to produce or create something formidable. I needed the collaboration of the Linguistics Association of Nigeria and academics from the university, but they turned their backs on me. Thank God, lots of the international linguistic academic communities came to my rescue hence, the Guosa language continued to wax stronger to date as one can read all over the ‘intanayo’, otherwise, Internet in Guosa language. Also, there are so many universities and academic institutions in Nigeria, who adopted ‘I don’t care’, attitude because they saw it from “nothing in it for me,” perspective. But thank God, the University of Abuja has been working ‘collaborating’ with us gradually right from 2016 when Prof. Michael Adikwu former Vice-Chancellor oversaw the affairs of the institution.”
The collaboration has extended to other institutions such as the West Contra Costa Unified School District, Richmond California and the East Bay University Hayward. “We are now working to run the Guosa Language Vocational Courses at the University of Abuja, Nigeria.”
He noted that Guosa language was a combination of some Nigeria’s languages cobbled together to form it, adding the language evolved from indigenous zonal lingua-franca also known as auxiliary language, born in the polylingual milieu of Nigeria and the surrounding regions of West Africa in the mid-19th century.
“West Africa is home to three language families, the Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan, which represents over 500 recognised languages—not including commonly-spoken colonial languages e.g., English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In 1975 fifteen nations in West Africa – Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Togo signed a treaty thus creating the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is the area that the Guosa language aims to serve. Within those regions, some of the major native languages are Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo, Ga,Twi, Wolof, Bassa and about 490 other indigenous languages and dialects according to the world ethno-linguistics research.
He noted that the linguistic structure of the language has largely been created as a posteriori based on Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, and some other Nigerians nay ECOWAS languages and dialects. “It has also been influenced by over 200 West African languages, stemming from the Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, and Nilo-Saharan language families. Yet, the diverse group of languages that have influenced Guosa are like the Leonardo Painting, or the Benin bronze to pull together into one cohesive scientific alternative language solution.
“Although a true linguistic study of African languages showed that there are many shared linguistic features common to many languages of the continent, most likely due to language contact and cultures between languages and language families. An overview of some of the Guosa language developing linguistic grammars, courtesy of Guosa Linguifex indicate that there are adequate developing rules for the scientific inclusion of endless traditional words and linguistic metamorphoses into the Guosa language but they are simple experiment. Additionally, Guosa language contains some phonological variations to assist learners of the language in being understood. This phonological feature would undoubtedly assist speakers who struggled to produce an alveolar trill, a feature found in Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba and some indigenous West African languages which are the primary parent languages of Guosa.”
“The University of Lagos also noted that Guosa language is good but an uphill task learning it and they backed out. The University of Ibadan equally wrote me saying that Guosa language is good but lacked adjectives, syntax, morphology, nouns, etc and they equally back out. All I needed was for them to assist me with their various linguistic technical research and development, but they saw me off the conference rooms,
“Yes, I left Nigeria for the United States but my soul and my spirit never leave at any point in time, otherwise I would never think of coming back to propagating the language of Guosa in the country of my birth. Guosa is gaining momentum than ever with the gradual help of the University of Abuja, and I wished the National University Commission (NUC) and other universities in Nigerian would come onboard.