On the 24th November 2021, Mazi Uba Acho, a native Nigerian discovered a new lake in Leicester in the East Midlands and named it Iyi Ojemba. “Wasn’t it already named by the inhabitants of Leicester?” you may be thinking and you would be right…just as Lake Victoria already had a name (many in fact, from the different languages spoken around it) long before Victorian explorer, John Speke discovered it and renamed it after his Queen. Uba Acho’s ‘discovery’ highlights the absurd notion of claiming discovery of places long known to local communities and renaming them.

This act of reverse colonialism was brought to mind when a number of English speakers were angered in that it had appeared that the Brecon Beacons National Park was being ‘re-named’ as an appeasement to Welsh speakers. The park has always been known as Bannau Brycheiniog since 1965 when it opened (see plaque below) and long before that as a Welsh placename. The Welsh language (and the Cornish language) have been repressed over the centuries (see below the story of the Welsh ‘not’ punishment for schoolchildren) and now that they being returned to the forefront, people from other countries shouldn’t really mind.

COLONIAL NARRATIVES

24/10/ 2021

Well done Maza Ubi Acho, hero of the Igbo Nation;

Intrepid explorer and role model to young Nigerians

For discovering a lake in deepest Leicestershire.

A lake that shall henceforth be called Iyi Ojemba.

A statue should be erected in your honour,

Not only in your homeland but beside the lake

So the natives will remember how you discovered

And named the lake they had swum and fished in

For as long as their forefathers could remember.

Now that English-speakers are up in arms…

An ironic turn of phrase when you think about it;

In bringing about the enforced anglicisation

Of Welsh placenames in the first place,

That the re-instating of Bannau Brycheiniog,

The original Welsh name for the Brecon Beacons

Along with both Eryri and Yr Wyddfa

Allows the Welsh at last to remove the Welsh ‘not’

From around their nation-shamed necks.

©graylightfoot