Page 4 - Language and Literacy Project StoryBook

FOREWORD

I grew up with broken English. It was the way that I
communicated with my family; it was fluid and fast-paced, with
its own conventions and rules. My parents, recent Nigerian
immigrants, gave me this language. It was a combination of
their home language of Igbo, English, and various phrases that
were somewhere in between. I switched and interjected pieces of
Igbo into English sentences, disregarding the idea of a barrier
between languages. To me, the combination of English and Igbo
created a language that was new and familiar, a comfortable mix
of the two. It was this language on which I built a foundation for

my cultural identity.
As the most frequented mode of communication, verbal
language often acts as a representation of influences within
heritage and culture. This phenomenon is often featured in
arenas where linguistic patterns and/or cultures traverse. My
own household is representative of this idea through various
aspects of my family’s linguistic identity, from the Igbo language
to accent to patterns in speech. As a Nigerian-American,
language has always featured a very direct correlation to the
intersection of my cultures; languages spoken in my home are
extremely central to the depiction of the duality of my Nigerian
and American heritages. Throughout my childhood, this
principle of language created a sphere of instances where this
overlap of culture was almost tangible. In this way, these stories
are illustrative of the bridge between language and culture and
highlight the social connotations that can are associated with

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