By @promise –
I do not speak you as often as I should.
Sometimes, I even dream in English.
But when I stub my toe, when the plantain burns, when the bus splashes water on me in the rain — it is you that leaps from my mouth. Raw. Unfiltered.
You, my first language.
My mother tongue.
Igbo, I’m sorry.
1. For the Times I Translated You Too Softly
Remember when I tried to explain you to my English friends?
I would water you down so you wouldn’t sound “aggressive.”
I left out the clicks in my throat, the rising-falling tones that could cut or comfort.
I told them your words meant things like “Hello” and “Thank you” — but how could I explain that Nnoo means “You are welcome here, with both hands”?
That Daalu means “I saw what you did, and I honour it”?
You are not a neat translation.
You are thunder.
You are lullaby.
You are proverb and play.
2. For the Voice Notes I Rehearsed
There are aunties and uncles whose phones ring with my silence.
I rehearse my replies in Igbo, tongue stumbling, fearing judgement — not just from them, but from you.
From the version of you that still lives in my grandmother’s mouth.
She speaks you with the grace of someone who never had to explain her identity through subtitles.
When I visit her in the village, I listen like a thief. I store her words. I repeat them later, in private.
It feels like borrowing a dress I’m scared to stain.
3. For the Words That Hide Behind English Ones
Even in English, you follow me.
I say “my spirit is not settled” when I mean I am anxious.
I say “she carried face” when someone is offended.
I say “please manage it” when I offer food.
I carry you into this borrowed language like contraband.
People tell me I speak English so well.
But I think in Igbo.
And sometimes, I grieve in it.
4. For the Child I Might Have One Day
What if they only speak English?
What if they grow up saying “Mum” and never “Nne”?
Will they feel the music in their name the way I do?
Will they know that our language is not just grammar, but memory — the sound of home cooked without gas, of palm wine in plastic bottles, of weddings where no one arrives on time?
I want to gift them you, even if my version of you is cracked and patched like a well-loved pot.
5. For the Future I Still Believe In
Maybe I’ll take a class.
Maybe I’ll start small: label things in the house.
Maybe I’ll stop being shy when I meet another Igbo speaker.
Maybe I’ll make mistakes — loudly. Proudly.
Because you, my first language, are not gone.
You are dormant in me.
Like seeds that just need rain.
And so I write this letter, not as goodbye, but as Mbọ — a beginning.
PS: I love you.
Even when I forget your words, I carry your rhythm.
Even when I get your grammar wrong, I still sound like home.
And when I finally return, I hope you’ll still recognise me.
~ Promise
