Languge as Cultural and Value Identity in Ancient Israel and Yoruba People

Languge as Cultural and Value Identity in Ancient Israel and Yoruba People of South-Western Nigeria

Author: Olabode J. Omotosho (Adeleke University, Nigeria)
Speaker: Olabode J. Omotosho
Topic: Language, Community, Ethnicity
The (SCOPUS / ISI) GLOCAL AFALA 2023 General Session

Abstract

Cultural and value identity of an individual opined to be found and located in language. In this sense, language could be described as a bill board of identity or identification that distinctively projects the culture and value of any nation or tribe. Meanwhile, language remains a cultural and value identity that needs to be admired and preserved. This is because of the adverse effects of Assyrian and Babylonian colonies on Israel and the British colonial masters on Africa, Yoruba in particular, seem to have pulverised the admiration and preservation of their languages. The study opined that when a language endures and overcomes subjugation of any imperialism, cultural and value identity of such a language seems to become insubsumable. The work adopted intercultural hermeneutics method to examine the Israelite and Yoruba languages as cultural and value identities. This study discovered that the annihilation of an indigenous language could lead to the loss of the nation or tribe’s cultural and value identity. Therefore, conscious effort of admiring and preserving indigenous language would ever be needed in spite of imperialism’s influences.

Keywords: Language, culture, value, identity, imperialism