Language and Tiv Cultural Practices in Adan-Wade Kohol Ga

Abstract

Language is a powerful weapon that expresses the culture of a given people. The study entitled: ‘Language and Tiv Cultural Practices in Adan-Wade Kohol Ga’ clearly looks at linguistic and cultural resources that Suemo Chia discusses in his novel. This study explores aspects of language and examines cultural elements in the novel under study. This study used Benjamin Lee Whorf’s Whorfian Hypothesis or Linguistic Relativity which was propounded in 1956. He theorised that the structure of our native language determines our perception or cosmology. Methodologically, this study used primary and documentary sources. The primary is Adan-Wade Kohol Ga and secondary sources are books, articles, dictionaries and theses. As for the data presentation, the researcher read, extracted relevant linguistic and cultural elements, transcribed and analysed. It has been discovered that Adan-Wade Kohol Ga is novel of growth – bildungsroman. It is also a historical novel that discusses Tiv traditional belief system. It has been found out that the novel under discussion has graphological, phonological, syntactic and semantic deviations. It has also been learnt that Tiv borrowed certain cultural practices from other tribes. The novel has linguistic and cultural archaisms. It has been recommended that the younger generation should study their indigenous literatures so as to understand the culture of their people. Young people should also learn their own languages; hence language defines individuals. Lecturers should recommend indigenous literatures to the students of Languages and Linguistics, Cultural Studies, Literature in English and English Language to read, analyse and translate.