I feel sad not knowing how to speak the language of my father’s people, but my mothers language came natural to me because I was born in south western Nigeria and both parents speak Yoruba (My mother’s language). So you can’t exactly fault me for not knowing how to speak my father tongue as I’ve never heard my father speak it either. To be honest, I’m not sure I like that language, but I still feel I would have to learn it at some point in my life if I must succeed in politics. I mean how can I be trusted to govern a people whose language I can not speak. So even though I don’t like the language and still think it’s hard to learn, I will try to learn it in the future. Although I know I won't be learning it now, but hopefully within the next 5 years lol.
However, I was doing some research a couple of months back on the isoko people of Nigeria for a story I was writing. Turns out there is a debate about the origin of this small ethnic group. While some historians like to believe the Isoko people originated from the great Benin Empire, there are those who disagree and argue that my people originated from the Igala people of Northern Nigeria. However all historians agree that we have some shared ties with the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria which makes me wonder where exactly my people originated from. This struggle is because Nigeria has a rich history of ethnicity even before the invading of the colonial masters.
The reason why I would disregard the information about my people originating from Igala is that it doesn't have a foundation of who founded the Ethnicity. History believes that a warrior named Opute who migrated from Benin founded the Isoko tribe around the 15th century, Although I do not have the sources to prove this information other than wikipedia where I searched some months back. Another thing I came to find was that while some believed Opute to be a warrior, others believed him to be a prince who left Benin because he did not want to participate in the struggle for the throne. And again it’s hard to prove this is true or false as history has already happened.
At the end of the day, I can say for certain that my tribe was founded in the 15th century by a man named Opute, and over time the language the man Opute spoke evolved into what we have now. I discovered that my people had merged with a lot of other ethnic groups before the arrival of the colonial masters, and during the colonial era, English was added to the language which had already been a replica of the Urhobo tribe and thus we now have very few distinctions between both languages. I wasn’t able to gather more online because there isn’t really much to gather apart from the fact that “Isoko” means; A community that dwells.
THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO HIVE LEARNER'S PROMPT FOR WEEK 152 EPISODE 2
