 Yes, hello. I am Ida Haji-Varianes. I am the Sohii lecturer at SOAS. So welcome to the sixth event in the SOAS University of London. I'm continuing the conversation series. SOAS will be hosting more virtual events in the upcoming months and today's event will be recorded. Please use the following hashtags to discuss or follow this event. So hashtag SOAS, hashtag SOAS alumni and hashtag we are SOAS. Please tweet as much as you can. You're more than welcome to do that. So today's event will be connecting the diaspora through African languages. We will have Dr. Montre, Misuri and Kumi Olatunji. We will have a discussion for about 30 minutes followed by a Q&A. Please submit your questions in the chat box. SOAS offers courses in Amharic, in Hausa, Somali, Swahili, Yoruba, Zulu. And I mean, we will also share all this in the chat box. My personal expertise is Swahili language and translation. Although I'm very interested in the diaspora. Indeed, I mean, this has been very well documented that second generation diasporas tend to feel disconnected from what should be their culture. This is also the case for Swahili diaspora in the UK. So I found, for example, when you go to funerals or weddings, the second generation tend to be a bit lost. Sometimes they need explanations about things. And also I'm a mother. I'm a mother to four second generation children. And I also see this firsthand. But interestingly here at SOAS, we're getting more and more heritage learners. So these are learners who hear the language when they're at home. And I think it definitely shows that there is an interest in the culture of the parents, so to say. So now is it like, how might education policy or maybe curricula best support this desire that is there, the desire to reconnect? So we should hear more about this from our speakers today. And so Dr. Montre Missouri is an associate professor in film and director of the graduate film program in the Department of Media, journalism and film, where she teaches script writing, film directing and African cinema. Dr. Missouri has worked in England, in Northern Ireland, Ghana. Nigeria is an independent filmmaker. Kumi Olatunji is a linguist and language enthusiast. She spent several years learning French, Spanish, Mandarin and Japanese. And she has extensive experience teaching English as a foreign language. She turned a professional attention to her heritage language of Yoruba while at SOAS on her MA linguistics program. And she wrote a dissertation on the family practices which have continued to be and continue to to a shift away from the language use. So now we will start with Kumi Olatunji, who will give us a perspective of the Yoruba and the language use in diaspora. Welcome, Kumi. Thank you. I don't know that that's a very generous introduction. So, yeah, I guess I don't know. It might be a big task for me to give the lay out of all Yoruba in the diaspora in the UK, but I can talk about my experience and I can talk about the experience of the people I spoke to or my dissertation. I mean, essentially, it sounds like it's very similar to Swahili in that I consider myself sort of the second generation, so a child of somebody who emigrated left Nigeria and settled here, stayed here. And I grew up listening to the language, hearing it, being spoken into it by my mum and extended family members, but not really engaging with it so much. I mean, my mum, who is an audience, actually, she did say that I used to speak to it on certain occasions, for example, to uncles who didn't speak to me in English. But I was, I don't know, I just didn't use it for most of my communication practices, right? And when I spoke to my participants for my MA dissertation, it was the same kind of thing. We understand it when we're spoken to, but we just don't respond in Yoruba. So I think that's not a general idea of the state of Yoruba in the UK. Obviously, there will be exceptions and there are exceptions, which I've seen on social media and we've kind of really clawed those second generations who are actually speaking it and we're like, oh my gosh, wow, how did that happen? So I guess it's just, I guess it's the exception to prove the rule, isn't it? That we've kind of shifted away, that we've lost our language to some degree and maybe in that lost culture a little bit. But yeah, those are my initial findings and also my experience. Yeah. OK, that's very interesting. How about, OK, Montre, would you like to let us know I mean, your thoughts and your perspective on the issue? OK, thank you. So first off, I just wanted to add a thank you again for the introduction. I just wanted to add to that that I'm on faculty at Howard University here in Washington, D.C. So I'm coming in to you all from from the US and like for me, I am an alum of so as University of London, where I completed my PhD in film and media studies. So I'm coming from a slightly different perspective. I am not a linguist, as I said, my area is film making and film studies. And my research in terms of research beyond the creative realm is on representations of the Yoruba Atlantic identity or the Yoruba Atlantic experience in an African American film, as well as other film makers within the Western Hemisphere. So I do look at Caribbean cinema, Latin cinema and how Yoruba Atlantic, what I would refer to and I'm borrowing, but Yoruba Atlantic identity is used as a kind of shared cultural language between diverse people. So I am I am definitely part of the African diaspora as an African American. I am part of that history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, not of any direct Nigerian heritage that I know of. But in terms of Yoruba Atlantic culture and specifically Yoruba religion, it has a place within the African American experience in terms of music, film, arts. And so that's my focal point as far as my research is how Yoruba diaspora culture has been adopted. Some will say retention. I think it's something to be said that it could very well be more along the lines of an adoption, particularly of African American cultures adopting that which has been brought to us by a Latino community, a Caribbean community and their retentions that they have brought to the United States. And we as African Americans have have adopted and have connected to as a way of reclaiming our own African roots. So that's that's my research focus. That's what I even into weave in my classes here at Howard University. That's very interesting. That's OK. Thank you very much for that. So I mean, how do you both see this reconnection? Maybe if you could talk about that, how do you see this reconnection, say, through art? And I mean, how have you seen it? Thank you. Yeah. Maybe Kumi, you could start by telling us that. Yeah, sure. So again, I can talk about myself personally, but also sort of refer to what I discovered or what the participants when I interviewed them, what they were saying. So for me, I always tell a little anecdote. And I'm sure some of the people who know me if they hear will be like, Oh, we've heard this before. But I was working in Spain teaching English and I was on the phone to my mom and she was asking me like, oh, how how's your Spanish coming along? In light of the fact that I'm spending a lot of time speaking English. And I was like, yeah, it's good. It's fine. You know, I'm putting in the work. And then she was like, oh, what about your your like your bank off? And I was like, yeah, yeah, it's fine. She's like, OK, say something. And the first thing that escaped my mouth is actually Spanish. So I was really shocked by that so much so that it was about more than five years ago. Maybe eight years ago now and I still remember it because it really stuck with me. Like, oh, my gosh, this foreign language is kind of taking this space that should be the preserve of like heritage culture. Obviously, I didn't have those words then, but that's the language I'm using now. And I was just like, oh, this isn't this isn't right. So I kind of held that experience in my memory and in my mind and thought, you know, I need to do something about this. I need to make sure that there's a space carved out for heritage culture for a connection to that. And I think it can be done through language. So that was definitely part of the reason why I decided to study it. So actually, because there is a Euro there is a Euro language course available. So, yeah, when thinking about doing for the study, I was just like, oh, so is the place because I know they do this. This is what I want to do. This is important. I didn't have it in my mind that I would be focusing on Europe as sort of any professional capacity. I just wanted to learn the language and do my district degree and carry on teaching English to the rest of the world. But then that was a complete shift in my perspective as a result of sort of being so as and doing this research as well. And also, I think speaking to the people I did for the dissertation, a lot of them have that same view that we need to connect or reconnect, I guess, from this kind of detachment that happened growing up in the UK, from what it is to be Yoruba, what it is to be Nigeria, because of the context in which we were growing up. It was like the 80s. I mean, I'm in my 30s. So the 80s, maybe some of them 70s and also 90s, where, you know, British racism, anti-immigrant sentiments, even just being African was just, you could be Caribbean. That's OK. It's possible, right? You're kind of cool. Everybody likes Omani. But being African is just really divided. So we were growing up with all of that internalized, I guess, self-hated in a way. Some, again, not all, but it's definitely something that came out of the research I did. And so now, in the context of Werner Boy, Afro Beats, like, for example, Afro Beats, where sort of people are writing their Yoruba names with all the accents and the sub-dots, myself included, Naija Mali, who's singing on Naija Mali, who's singing in Yoruba and, you know, on his Instagram, he's talking in Yoruba all the time. He has, like, maybe five million followers. So in this context, it's just maybe it's been the catalyst for a different kind of attitude sentiment to want to connect with this. What are they saying in Yoruba? What are they talking about? Oh, my gosh, it's actually really cool to present this version of myself. And let me not just perform it, let me actually connect with it. And so then, I guess, people want to learn the language. But then also to then pass it on, you know, to their children, to safeguard heritage for future generations. Otherwise, there is this fear that it could be really lost, right? So I guess that's sort of the role of connection in what I've been looking at. Oh, wow. Okay, that's a tough act to follow. Thank you. Thank you for me. So I'll go from one side of the Atlantic to the other because obviously we had discussion before today about the different diasporas. So even though, again, my perspective is that of the African-American experience and that's my research area. But part of my lived experience, which we talked about, is living for more than a decade in London, in the UK, and kind of very grateful to have been adopted by the Nigerian community and specifically by Yoruba in terms of those who were born and raised in Yoruba, Nigeria, as well as the first generation that Kumi talked about as far as being born in London and having that unique experience of being of African parents but being born and raised in the UK. So I, too, am a proud mom. I have three kids, all of whom are half Yoruba. I have twins, so Ibeji. And they are kind of in the middle as well because they were born in South London. But are now calling for you at home. So I'm thinking, I'm always thinking in terms of these different diasporas because I see both sides having, even as an adult, seeing the experience of what it is to be of African parents in the UK. But in terms of my research and thinking about the significance of Yoruba Atlantic culture identity in the Americas, as I mentioned before, the connection of these various diasporas throughout the Americas, as far as Latin America and the Caribbean, I think part of the push for African Americans to adopt and to become focused on representations of a Yoruba Atlantic identity is has very strong both social and political implications. So the idea that these various people are coming with these seemingly disconnected identities, that even though a person can be coming from Cuba or the Dominican Republic or Haiti or some other part of South America, and even though we at SOAS and other academic institutions understand the clear connection between these communities as far as of African descent and African Americans living here in the United States, that's not always obvious. So we can just think about the election that we just lived through and how we have these different groups or pockets of the voting population making very different decisions, I think to an extent based on the idea that they are not at all connected. And so when there's this adoption of say, again, Yoruba Atlantic identity and the history that goes with that and religion and culture, then that becomes the basis of which conversation again. So again, anecdotally, being, again, Black American and thinking about, say, seeing someone who's Latino or Latina, even if we look the same, physically, we're not the same. Or at least that's the perception socially, politically within this state. So you are a Spanish speaker or your parents are Spanish speakers and I'm not like you because my parents migrated to the U.S. for economic reasons and it was not about having some kind of political solidarity with your experience of being the descendant of enslaved people in the United States. I don't want to be economically or socially positioned where you are. That's not why we come to this country. But then as we connect, if I can mention Onorisha, if we say, okay, well, what about, do you know anything about Oshun or Yemoja? Now all this that we can talk, because I've become, instead of an outsider, I'm now an insider. Now the conversation can begin because I've proven myself to have some kind of deeper cultural understanding of that community's experience. And so it's interesting that again you have these groups of people who are coming from different language groups and from different parts of the Americas, but a starting point of a conversation to then build some kind of connections with social, political solidarity can be with this cultural experience that finds its way or comes from Southwestern Nigeria. So that is in my perspective in thinking about how do we look at, in terms of film, for example, how do we look at Cuban third cinema, Brazilian cinema, other cinemas throughout this part of the world and then how those cinemas influence African American independent film making around this idea of representation of Yoruba culture and religion. I hope that's helpful. And we see this beginning in art as well, like we talked about before today. People have mentioned my work in thinking about or doing an analysis on, say, Beyonce's visual album Lemonade or in terms of fashion music. Again, how is Yoruba diaspora culture and specifically religion used and adopted by African Americans as a way of linking our historical experience to those of other diaspora communities within this hemisphere? Can I just very quickly ask something? You've mentioned a couple of times, is it Yoruba Atlantic? So is there a difference between Yoruba Atlantic and is it Yoruba UK, like Yoruba Britain? I mean, yes, so what's the difference? Homie, I'm going to jump in, but please correct me if you can. Yes, please. I mean, you guys go on and converse. Well, again, I'm thinking in terms of, obviously, my experience, lived experience of being African American but then also a lived experience of being amongst Yoruba, the Nigerian community, specifically Yoruba community in the UK. It's a difference in the diasporas in terms of the roots and the motivation for the diaspora experience. So the reason I'm making a distinction in terms of the Yoruba Atlantic, meaning the Americas, is I'm talking about the historical experience of those who are the descendants of the transatlantic slave trade as opposed to, and I'm going to make a distinction. And there's another, there's probably like three diaspora. So there is, when we're in the Americas, we act as if, again, as if Africans did not travel, West Africans in particular did not travel after 1960 and onward. So a very kind of Euro American-centric idea of the Black diaspora, the African diaspora, is almost strictly this kind of the transatlantic slave trade. So that's one, and I'm not giving it any kind of hierarchy or, but then the other, of course, what obviously Kumi is talking about is in terms of the experience of those children whose parents for socio-economic reasons, their economic migrants, maybe the educational migrants, they came to UK to study and then they stayed and they got jobs and had kids and then their children were born in the UK. And then that is a different diaspora experience. And then there's a similar one still here in North America and it's interesting because now I'm talking about kind of my own children and even my students at Howard University of those who are the children of Nigerians who did not go to the UK and instead they settled in the United States or Canada. I would argue there are similarities between their experience of being born and raised in Detroit, Michigan or Atlanta, Georgia or Washington DC. They have a lot of similarities with their cousins in the UK. And then they also have differences. So I think the obvious connection again is that they are the children of parents for whatever educational or economic or what social reasons decided probably from like 1959, 1960 onward to leave Nigeria. And I know we can call that the brain drain and settle in the UK or Canada or the US. So that idea, that kind of outsider experience of all the things that Kumi talked about in terms of this mainstream perception of a stereotypical and very negative derogatory idea of what it is to be African in the West. And not only how the white mainstream society treats you but even how other black diaspora groups treat you. So when you were talking about what it is to be Caribbean in the UK is a bit different than what it is to be of African parents in the UK. So for my students, again thinking about this other diaspora is what is it to be African in the US versus what it is to be black American or as we say African American in the US and that distinction. Now, I think that is similar. The difference that I would see between children of Nigerian parents in the US versus children of Nigerian parents in the UK is this even though we have this very significant Caribbean culture and community and you can be just a straight up guy from Birmingham who's of English parents or Irish parents but to speak Patois. Like you know that there's very strong Caribbean kind of influence throughout England and other parts of the UK but I think it's even stronger an influence in the US in terms of the black American experience. We're like 12 or 13% of population and we think we're even bigger in terms of how we kind of dominate certain spaces. So I think that children of Nigerian parents in the US they are still a same group because they share similarities with those in the UK but then there's that kind of almost forced in some way adoption of a more dominant African American identity and culture politically, socially, creatively, artistically like I'm black in America so if I'm black in America I have to be this kind of black in America. Now in terms of again the idea about the parents speaking in Yoruba and a lot of things that Komi you talked about I think those similarities are there but then there's that additional thing of assimilating into the dominant black culture. Okay yeah go on Komi and then tell us what you think yes. It's quite interesting because that idea of everybody who's black and American is an African American. I think I was even I've only recently began to realise that's not the case and that's through sort of meeting and hanging out with and being friends with people who are yeah American race in the US but having parents from whatever either whether it is the Caribbean or African countries and sort of that dichotomy that is basically white or you know black in Yoruba is quite interesting from the outside and it's almost understandable to me like well you have an American accent you're black but you must be African American but then I have also started to notice the similarities I guess between someone like myself who's born and raised in the UK Nigerian parents and someone who's born and raised in the U.S. but maybe the Haitian parents but I guess what do you see as maybe the relationship between the African Americans and the I guess other African Americans but black in the US in terms of the relationship to their culture maybe even to Yoruba because I know that when I was doing some reading on heritage language learning a lot of African Americans try to learn Yoruba as a way to connect with I guess this transatlantic identity or African identity Yoruba identity but at the same time I guess maybe I don't know if they've seen themselves as very distinct from somebody who is Yoruba American like but but then they're trying to learn Yoruba yeah definitely yes yeah so then how about art is in like art and we've got five minutes to go or six I think so how does art I mean come into play with all this like what happens with art and artists like I think we talked about Beyonce and is it Barnaboy and Naira Malay I mean how do they come into play with all this well um I think they're obviously I think they're influencers and um and I know it doesn't move on to art but but I feel like I want to answer please please do do do do so it's interesting as I'm looking at the the two of you all and you're right because just literally uh Swahili and Yoruba are probably Swahili being first are probably the two most sought after languages for that that people want to learn in terms of African languages I think in the US I could be wrong but I don't think I think we're being first and Yoruba is probably a close second and so to answer a thing to speak to your question call me it's probably one again of searching for identity so to a certain extent from the perspective I use the term black American but that seems at times problematic because now the technical term is African American but it is just even that the term is African American is odd it's kind of a weird problematic or you know contested terminology because we got into a situation where Obama was not African American but I'm African American but his father was from Kenya so so it's thinking about what is the political history and even a term like African American so I one of the things that stood out for me being black American living in the UK is the idea that people are coming with these identities that are a bit more fixed I mean there's fluidity to it but I think when you're asking okay how does a black American make a distinction between himself or herself and a Nigerian American I think that's what we're identifying the place of the parents and then Haitian American and I think it's slightly different in the sense that the shared experience of the black American or the African American is the idea of not knowing where you come from on the kind of so it's kind of odd like well how do you see yourself as being distinctive well if I see myself as being distinctive is that my mother was born in Georgia and my father was born in West Virginia and don't ask me anything beyond that right like that's it you know I'm not taking a DNA test so yeah so I'm from Washington DC I was born and raised in Washington DC I can tell you I've lived in Nigeria I've lived in Ghana I've lived in the UK but my identity is very American for better or for worse because that is the shared experience of being a descendant of place and an entire history being wiped out so the attraction to say Yoruba is the idea of this is something that can kind of put me find a home culturally to say this is whether that's where my DNA leads me or not this is the the Yoruba Southwestern Nigeria that helps I don't know but I think it does defeat into art then that becomes the inspiration for how to infuse that history and that culture into music into visual arts into them I think that that's the inspiration to then again have something to latch onto hold on to yeah go and come you're gonna say something as well so let me hear let's hear I guess if we're moving on to art again no I think um well before we do that but yeah when you say it makes a lot of sense um I guess in context I'm just kind of finding out these things as I go um yeah um so in terms of I guess art as the the influence of art on Yoruba on art and music and things and maybe it's relevance to what I'm interested in I mean I briefly spoke about it before where you know you see um Yoruba on your screens I recently watched a film um called The Last Tree was made in 2019 maybe just last year or it's quite a recent film it's sort of a coming of age of a young Yoruba boy who um was fostered and then goes back and lives with his mom and you know ends up in Nigeria it's a beautiful beautiful beautiful film um but seeing something like that the representation and I felt was a really authentic representation of not just being black you know it's it's actually specifically Yoruba culture I guess it speaks to me and I'm assuming it speaks to the masses because you know films like this are doing okay um and a very personal uh personal level um so you know I felt like a I guess a swelling sense of pride when he decides he goes to Nigeria and he loved it and he even goes to um the protagonist goes to a Bawalaw and has a ceremony you know I'm just like oh wow because normally the images of um I guess Nigerianists are uh sort of religious so Christian sorry uh Euro Christian religion or um Islam and so just seeing sort of the indigenous aspect to them was like oh wow we're showing this now okay cool let me let me know let me see more let me find out what that is I didn't know already um I mentioned the musicians as well so hearing the Yoruba it's just like oh my god I can actually understand what they're saying it's kind of like a like an in an in-crowd um feeling but the the stage is like basically for everyone the whole world knows who Bawalaw is the whole world knows um even not just Yoruba but when the Yonsei Sambo is Chinamanda on her um on her uh record it's just like oh wow I know who this woman is and she's a Nigerian woman so uh yeah these things just they're sort of a personal connection from that connection you can identify with and then I guess it's first people on to want to know more want to be part of it and um yeah it makes for interesting research that's really good so let me ask you one last thing okay do you think then that there could be some kind of like a of a global Yoruba diaspora identity is there such a thing I think there is um that's that's I think uh kind of where the title of this talk um even originated from so the idea of mapping the Yoruba was a project that I was in discussion with uh with a colleague and friend who actually teaches at SOAS and teaches Yoruba language and culture Dr um uh Prokola yes and so we talked in terms of the idea that there is a where I'm starting the conversation with the concept of a Yoruba Atlantic identity that my real interest is further in thinking about a global identity and even though it can have layers and different roots or paths get there but uh this notion that and which we didn't talk about but even throughout West Africa uh that there are different cultural groups within the region who even though they don't identify themselves as Yoruba but they have this shared heritage this shared story or if you call the folklore that talks in terms of their migration from Ile Ife to wherever they've settled so whether it's the gong of a pra or the eve of um of Togo and of Ghana or the various groups in Benin but even the diaspora because we don't think about that but the diaspora was in a region of the continent this shared heritage and this shared um culture calling different deities by the same names that they are still referred to in southwestern Nigeria the most prominent of course they were SU and so um so that diaspora and then thinking in terms of the transatlantic diaspora with regards to enslavement and what we talked about in detail again then that third wave of diaspora was with regards to those who voluntarily migrated and settled in the UK or North America I think when you start to broaden that kind of scope of just the sheer magnitude of people and then in terms of art whether it's film um and thank you for mentioning the last tree because I'm sure that Shola Amu in my own work in DC we've hosted um some of his work and so like he's an amazing filmmaker but if we think in terms of film literature of visual art music again I'm thinking as far as fashion all of this I think there's an argument to be made about a global identity and what I had had in mind was the idea of a digital mapping a digital cultural mapping of the influence of Yoruba on all of these different parts of the continent as well as other spaces beyond the Americas, Africa, UK and Yoruba but even again being a so as graduate thinking about linguistic connections between Yoruba and Japanese like whether these broader kind of perspectives that we can think in terms of influences and connection. Okay that was very very good so we I think we have to take some questions now and the first one comes from Vanessa Power and she wants to ask okay she's saying that she has spent many many years living in and working in the southern part of Nigeria and she's asking um in as much as the Yoruba language is lost in this global space of foreign languages would you agree that it dominates the space of language and culture within Nigeria so for instance she says you mentioned Barnaboy in your reference but he is actually from river states in the south region but seeing the Yoruba so yes go on so you're both nodding who wants to respond to Vanessa Power um yeah I can start I don't mind so um I think it's interesting whether or not it dominates the space of language and culture within Nigeria I don't know if I can speak to that um because I'm not in Nigeria and also I'm generally referencing the effects of I guess Yoruba in the UK you know or language language loss in the UK and I would agree that there is a way that Yoruba does dominate conversations on African-ness uh sometimes West African-ness I mean Montrade just told us that Sohi and Yoruba are the two most learned languages by African-Americans so why you know why are they not learning um evil or epic um so yeah it does dominate but whether it dominates in Nigeria I think maybe Vanessa you if you've you know had the experience of living and working and you would you would be able to speak to that better probably but I'm guessing Bernaboy he's trying to um market himself to this global on the global uh stage not just in Yoruba so sorry not just in Nigeria so I guess yeah Yoruba does dominate on the global stage for African languages but I mean maybe we have to discuss things like who has power social power economic power political power in Nigeria to see whether or not that's actually uh the case you know yeah okay maybe maybe um the the next question can go to Montrade which is uh from uh tech coffee and they're asking what's the future of African language as language is such a powerful identifier and means of engagement and establishing identity so would you suggest for example one to have a continental African language that is taught in all the schools say in Africa and abroad or should we establish one original language for all the four corners of Africa uh again taught in schools and abroad and uh tech speaks three African languages fluently and from Ghana so should we have one it's probably the idea of a pan-African language I don't know uh do you have any thought on on a pan-African language or is that going to erase everybody's language and identity as well I'm not sure and you want me to answer that well again I prefaced my answer not not a language I'm not a language but um to see how that could be that could be a bit problematic in the sense as we know that language is culture so what cultures are being lost um if we just if we make a decision on just a few languages being dominant across the whole continent that that seems I'm not sure how that would work so because there's so many languages and so many even again not a language but even in terms of Yoruba we know that when we say Yoruba we're talking about one particular quote dialect of it we are not talking about all the many different ways that Yoruba is spoken even within this the southwestern region of Nigeria um I think that probably I think you're probably right this this probably transcends yeah but this is a good question from Adele and uh she's asking about transatlantic a diaspora and access and she says that she's noticed that black america and pan-africanism so yes generally tends to to to adopt Swahili as the heritage language so this is seen as so for example we have Kwanzaa that have taken Swahili so how can the standards of transatlantic slavery engage with heritage without drifting into appropriation okay that that's one I feel more comfortable with so great yeah that's a really good question I think that um that that one way uh to approach that is really to uh think in terms of the specifics of of culture so uh I agree with the question again living growing up in not just the US but in Washington DC where when I was young we actually adopted not me but our city adopted Afro-centricity as our citywide public school curricula so and being graduate even of power university um I think there was a a lot more that I needed to see and I'm grateful that I did see by leaving the US and um first of all selling in the UK and then um living and working in West Africa I believe it gives you a totally from my black American perspective it gives you a totally different understanding of the just multiplicity of black identities and how we as African-Americans see the diaspora sometimes can be quite reductionist when we think about Afro-centricity you know in terms of adopting Swahili but then there's this thing we created called Kwanzaa and so we we have pieced together this quote or this gumbo that serves our social and political purposes and we've taken different bits on the continent and kind of mushed it all together for what it is the negotiation we're doing here in the US that does not necessarily means that it translates well in terms of our interactions and our understanding of those who are born and raised on the continent nor does it um does it translate well to those who are um in the diaspora and are of African parentage so to have real one-on-one dialogue and interaction and be open to the understanding that our sense of blackness and our black identity is not the universal black identities that's that's a really that's a really great answer definitely and uh there's a okay doctor Kole who's a tall Kole or Dutola who's just told us that it was actually Professor Wale Soyinka who suggested that the Pan-African language should be Swahili in 1977 there's another really good question from about Brazil from Moji and they're asking would you be able to say maybe something more about the Yoruba culture experience or influence or in Brazil because they find it fascinating how much of the culture has survived slavery but this is also linked to somebody else who's just written that is a whole museum so Bustina says that okay there were in Cuba and there's an entire museum that is dedicated to Yoruba religion so you've got this happening in Cuba the museum would you tell them more about Brazil if you can but if you can't you can just I'll jump in so and I only speak a little bit because I'm not an expert on Cuba but obviously part of my research in terms of film touched on those areas one thing and it is I think part of the retention and this does sound very Afro-centric I'm treading very lightly but I think part of the retention is a distinction between again say of Brazil or Cuba versus the United States is one Catholicism and two gosh it sounds so Afro-centric the drum so drum the talking drum is I think is a big is a big distinction between again the U.S. and other parts of the Americas in the sense that the drum as we know speaks of which so in the various parts of the Americas both the the ability to maintain the drum among enslaved people and to have a religion that has multi deities that then becomes a space by which arishas can still live and breathe and exist within the minds and the experiences of those peoples I think historically is where there's a distinction someone's mentioned Fidel Castro and yes and then I was what I was up and that is and then there is the political implications I think it's Cuba in particular is interesting because even though we're thinking about the revolution in 1959 revolution with Castro and the introduction of socialism which is obviously coming from a neo Marxist point of view and but we have this this very unique space that even though there's the push for socialism as a form of a class revolution the the the retention and the promotion of Yoruba then becomes forms of the cultural basis for a national identity it's a rallying process I'm sure the person asking this question is well aware again of the 31st of December and the famous televised speech by Castro when these two white doves come from the sky in the middle of the night and that was by the people of Cuba considered the anointment of Fidel Castro that whether you believe it was or is either way that this was a symbol recognized by so many Cuban people that Castro himself had been ordained by the Yoruba reaches to be the leader of the Cuban people so I think whether you're looking at Cuba which is quite distinctive but even Brazil that you have these very diverse people coming from all these different backgrounds they do not necessarily have a shared racial or cultural history but if you can say to a people like the Brazilian nation that oh but all of you all understand that Yamaha is your mother so whether you're a Japanese Brazilian or you're a German descent and you're Brazilian but the 31st of December this is the feast of Yamaha or any other female deities or a plethora of Yoruba reaches that then becomes the cultural basis for formate for formulating national identity so it does have social and political implications hope that answers that that's that was that was Brian thank you so much thank you there's a question here from Dr. Teresa Foyeta who is lecturer at University of Edinburgh and she wants to know what do you think about the role or the effect of universities in teaching a language or not teaching it for diasporas in various corners that you have experienced maybe that's quite a good question to end with because we have three minutes to go I think well we might we might we might we might we'll see yeah so I think I guess for what we term heritage language languages the university I think the education of these heritage languages or communities languages community languages tends to happen in maybe two domains one is the university and the other is the community you know so started by speakers of the language who feel like hey we should do something for our community and so they set up either complementary schools or I don't know initiatives like a culture tree where you know they have YouTube videos to teach kids songs and parents can join in right and universities they have a part to play as well because I mean there is no community community school for you really not not in the same way that I can go get formal training that will you know be of a certain level with the pedagogy that's been thought about and considered so I mean it does have a place but unfortunately I don't think there's very much besides so as for Yoruba in the UK and not just Yoruba for African languages if I'm not wrong so as is the only place we can study Yoruba maybe Zulu if it's along the curriculum and some of the other less commonly called African languages other than Swahili I know and a lot of the other universities so I think universities it would be great for them to do would be good to do more which is basically what I'm hoping to kind of look into next how can there be a sort of a better pedagogy or a methodology or approach to teaching specifically heritage learners because what we find is that in the in the language these African language classrooms they're sort of heritage learner dominant or heavy if not dominant but the the sort of teaching of these languages is so it takes a second language or foreign language approach so it doesn't take into consideration that this is not actually something new and unfamiliar necessarily I'm talking about the curriculum not necessarily what the teacher the teacher could be great and then you know mold that what they have worked with it to adapt to the learner but I generally think that I don't know it's not a reflection on university it's just the current state of African language education particularly in the UK I think the US is doing a lot better but particularly in the UK and even more with respect to heritage learners there's just so much more that can be done and maybe it's the case of the community speaking to the university or the university going to the community and you know triangulating this and finding out how we can work from more sides I definitely think that you've really touched on something really important there coming I think it's very much the university who needs to come together with the community the community and universities that get together definitely and Dr. Cole has just said here that African language universities tend to be service departments so we're just offering services of these languages we definitely need to work with the communities for there to really be more impact in what we're teaching and the yeah he has and has added that obviously cultural immersion is very very important to language learning and that's something that I mean do you have any any any thoughts on culture immersion and and language we've already over we've already gone over our time I think yeah cultural immersion so immersing immersing oneself in the culture I think you it depends where this the site of learning is both inside and outside of the classroom so we could talk about bringing culture into the classroom yeah sure you know maybe using these popular cultural references that we've spoken about even if Bernabas or whoever is just dropping from the robot in songs I still think that's the universe so we can look at we can talk about that in the language class what why not what is this difference in that bring culture not just the learning of language and not just you know this of birds and and certain structures bring all of that into the classroom bring history into the classroom because people are there usually for heritage right so they want to learn about where it comes from whether that's an imagined mystical Africa or whether it's like what actually happened in you know 1979 what what actually happened so yeah bring the classroom and then why not take take the students outside the school where there are your but people in you say oh which uh something that u.s universities are doing I think Howard did this actually taking students to Nigeria to the battle or university I would know uh the university so I mean yeah I can't really do that I was there doing that now for Swahili actually we send our students to Zanzibar and Kenya and they're there for the whole year and when they come back they're called they are normally quite fluent so I've got something here from Hilary Bane uh Hilary here in Bane Nande and so she's from Rwanda I mean her parents see that's the difference her parents are from Rwanda but she was raised here and they successfully taught her Kenyar Wanda so she's fluent in her parents language however she's thinking of the whole idea of mother tongues in in relation to colonizer's languages and she's talking about Ngugi Wa Thiyongo and how they the Ngugi Festa's Genoa Chebe of how um English has become an African language in itself and uh this is actually crucial for the independence movement throughout Africa what are your thoughts on this maybe we could end on this um uh the thought of Africa as as an African of English as an African language yes so maybe English or Swahili English I was being distracted by that conversation going on in the chat I was listening to you coming when I was looking at her comments and I was like oh my goodness yeah yes Ngugi and again I I'm staying in my lane not being a linguist but obviously coming from um languages and cultures of Africa previous department languages and cultures of Africa so as and then film and media studies um we were kind of obviously we have the different languages but thinking about um language and therefore culture is dynamic so the idea that even if we have uh whether it's English or French but how is it that it's been on the continent for a certain amount of time and how has it changed so I'm coming obviously from a standpoint of having this one language there's no choices it is the language of the the one who enslaved us but how we've taken that language and we transformed it um into something else so I know decades ago uh some um African-American academics were calling it ebonics um and then we think about American anthropology and even connecting whatever retentions that we have in America to southwestern Nigeria and other parts of West Africa was done through language of studying um the language patterns of black people in the American South and hearing the african the african retentions and the transformation of English into something quite distinctive so I think if we look at the black experience in the United States there is an argument to be made of how you can take a European language and it can be transformed into something quite different from those of us the descendants who don't have your or it's English or it's French and then French becomes Creole then English becomes some other um I saw somebody talk about Henry Louis Gates when we think about signifying monkey again african-american scholars working on you know with a Wallachianco the type of here is the roots actually um for african-americans to get ourselves back to West Africa through the way that we speak English that is our linguistic connection to the continent is that we we transform this European language into something else so this I think so yeah so I think Hillary the answer is definitely yes there is a great scale and this is why we also have books like um the palm wine drinker by tutuola so I mean we we have got yes um so then like people are really enjoying your conversation ladies and um maybe you might want to check I mean I think we've already gone on time so maybe I will I will I will I will I will close the the the session but then we can keep on talking if you feel like it but just to quickly remind you is that the next event will um of this continuing the conversations will be advertised very soon um it will be as interesting as today's Montre and and Kumi's conversation just check out our ticket our sorry our website for the tickets and um if you're interested you could also email event at soas.ac.uk and if you'd like to discuss further maybe we can go and carry this on to Twitter uh with our three hashtags so us um so us alumni and we are so us so we can talk some more with Dr. Koller and Aremu and Tanya and Hillary and everybody Inessa um please come on on Twitter and we can continue our conversation there thank you so much for this fantastic conversation it was amazing thank you very much thank you thank you all right everybody bye