Role Of Language In Umuofian Culture

Language is a crucial unit that constitutes and builds a nation’s culture and so identity, it is not a mere tool that serves to communicate one’s needs in a social order; but rather a complex system of signs that embraces the whole cultural frame of a certain community. Our identities emerge from our cultural transactions and interchanges, and these latter cannot be possible without the mediation of a communicative system i.e. language. Language operates in order to construct meanings and understandings of a particular culture, and thus has a part of responsibility in the creation of cultural identity. It embeds the very customs, ways of life, principles and beliefs of each culture in a distinct connotative setup; that sometimes cannot be relevant or transmitted in another system. It is then a form of resistance through which people must champion their cultural belonging
This resonance of the proverbs refers to rituals and customs of life that can only be significant in the genuine language it has been conceived in, and as such it is shared and accepted by people in Umuofian society. Language represents the soul of African culture; because African culture draws on proverbs, folktales, music, and rites designed and shared solely in a certain oral form. In the novel the elders of the UPU never miss the chance to evoke an African old proverb or a folktale in Igbo; because of its important role in the lives of African people, as it carries wisdom and modes of thought to live by. Achebe's use of African orality in Ibo language, indeed has given the native language its merited value and to the novel that authentic African tone. Ibo people would use proverbs in every aspect of their life to assert that uniqueness of the mother tongue and richness of oral culture, and mostly to celebrate the native language in its vital folk