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Linguistic Diversity In Nigeria

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LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY Nigeria as a linguistically diversed country is currently said to have over five hundred languages, though the dominant ones officially recognised by the government, apart from English, remain: Yorùbá, Hausa, and Igbo. The exact number of languages spoken in Nigeria is not quite certain as there are some languages which are yet to be discovered. In fact, what constitutes a language or a dialect has been debated for too long a time by linguists. Hoffman (1974) classifies 396 in language families in Nigeria excluding dialects that are recognised, while Hansford (1976) recognises 395 languages in Nigeria. Blench and Dendo (2003), however, record 550 languages as spoken. However, according to the most recent survey, Nigeria …show more content…

A typology of the languages shows that there are three types of languages: majority, minority and endangered. The major languages such as Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, etc. are spoken by large number of speakers and are almost invariably associated with higher status and perhaps political and economic power. However, it is a mistake to ignore minority languages as doing so means exclusion and denial of the rights of speakers to use them in crucial domains such as education in general and literacy in …show more content…

Contact involves not only an exchange of cultural elements and products, but also of cultural prestige, which is often correlated with different degrees of technological advancement. There are six major characteristics of an endangered language, according to Bomgbose (2011): • Very few speakers remaining, most of them old. • No longer used for any meaningful purpose in the community. • Not being transmitted to the younger generation. • No orthography or written materials in it. • Language shift has taken place such that the language has been or is being replaced by another language. • On the verge of extinction. The above view shows that when a language is moving gradually towards extinction as a result of the users’ attitude, it is an indication that a culture is going out of existence. It is a pointer that the story of a people is about to be lost. Bole language with its rich culture of aphorisms, proverbs, folklore, folktale, oral poetry, oral tradition, moonlight stories, songs, panegyric, praise, and others is gradually losing its relevance and emphasis. This brings forth the pressing need that all hands must be on deck in order to revive the endangered

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