The Rhythm of Communal Identity

Abstract

The relationship between language, music and cultural identity has always been of special interest in the social sciences, especially in the areas of anthropology, social psychology and ethnomusicology. The main argument revolves on how language reflected through music positively impacts on the identity of a social group, and what happens where this is lacking. Cultures die and languages go into extinction when there are no creative ways of keeping them alive. The aim of this essay is to investigate how the culture and language of a particular society could be safeguarded through music. Beyond the theoretical framework, I shall substantiate this investigation with the example of the Igbo people of Southeastern Nigeria, whose cultural identity is seriously threatened by the lack of interest in the local language among the people. Part of this disinterestedness is caused by the unique tendency of Igbo people to travel outside their original communities and to culturally adapt in their diaspora communities. This essay therefore aims at a) addressing this problem of identity through a sociological analysis of communal identity, and b) seeking how identity could be rediscovered through music that is delivered in a local language, illustrated with the example of Igbo cultural group. It is hoped that such analysis would aid in presenting another means of safeguarding endangered local languages, which invariably has a lot of implications for the cultural identity of the group involved. Of course, the analysis that is advanced here is not limited to the Igbo since the argument is based on a general epistemological function of music and language with respect to cultural identity.