This issue came up while we were discussing the Yoruba Version of the Google Search Engine. While some people were applauding it as a step in the right direction, others were convinced that it's not an important. While some people people want us to support our local languages more, others want us to embrace English and use it to accelerate our development.

I belong to the school of thought that language is a elic of history and nothing more. I do not believe that my language or ethnicity defines me, because I believe we are all individuals in this world. Ultimately, I want to learn the language that will enable me to develop faster and I believe that this language is English, not Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo, or even Pidgin.

English, afterall, is the language of the Internet, the language of textbooks, and the official language we all learn in school. It is our lingua franca and fortunately for us, it is the language of many dominant nations in the emerging world economy; countries we will do well to form alliances with and learn from. I do not see why we would want to waste time rewriting the Internet, our textbooks, et cetera in Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa or Pidgin just because we want to "promote our culture".

So my current belief is that efforts to promote our Nigerian languages are a waste of time and nothing more. Do you disagree? Can you shed more light on this issue?

I disagree!

The frenchman wont speak english on CNN
The german wont .....................
The Japanese wont......................

They'll only do if they so wish (not mandatory)

Why can't we be proud of what we have? English only became our lingua franca after colonisation. We have an identity. We have our own mother toungue. WE have the resources and knowlegde to make yoruba or any other Nigerian dialect acceptable round the world.
We don't have to sit in the doldrums of insignificance.
Lets promote our culture. Lets promote our mothertongue

English isnt better than Yoruba. As a matter of fact yoruba is more complete. English derives its words from other languages as well.

We appreciate English because the english promoted it. Nothin wrong if we use english afterall there's nothing wrong in beign multi-lingual. But lets not kill our mothertongue. If for no reason, lets promote it for posterity sake.

"If u don't say here I am in this crowded world, no one would say there you are"

Outside of an indentity issue (which I think is paramount) promoting out languages makes it easier for those that dont speak english or dont speak it well to be part of the world. If our nation invested in translating key documents into our languages, you'd find some an in the village capable of understanding what is happening in china or Romania, because the information would be written in his language.

The powerful countries in the world have all done that. South africa has , i believe, 9 official languages, and china supports all 55 languages in its country. They even pay to have newspapers translated into those langauges. India does the same thing and even awards yearly prizes to writers in local indian languages. Needless to say these countries have a deep indentity, making them more patriotic and which makes information easil accessible to the masses, even the old and poor.

Wow. This is a very good question.

I agree with seun, but i also agree with Layi.

The reasons why i agreed with seun is that, there's never gonna be a way for us to turn everything into hausa, Igbo, yoruba. Nigerian languages do not only end in those three lannguages, there are like OTHER many languages in Nigeria, If everything turns to yoruba, igbo and hausa, what would the delta igbo, efik,and edo people say? they will also want stuffs to be translated in their own language. Infact it's impossible. we can have stuffs In Nigerian Laguages, and things like that...But the fact still remain, not everything will be transformed, and i might as well say, English will be our last resort.

The reason why i agreed with layi is because, i would love to see NIgerian languages grow all over the world, just like french and spanish. BUT i can see from all angles that, that ain't gon happen.

WHat are the Nigerian professors in different languages doing? Eating pounded yam and egusi soup, i suppose . Nothing comes easy my lady .Even trying to understand the white man's language, sometimes can be a headache.

I think nobody is saying everything should be transformed, all we are trying to say is that we should promote it either by speaking or by way of expression when we get the chance to do that. Isnt it pathetic, when you visit a yoruba home, and all you hear is "How are you" instead of "Bawoni" or "se da da lowa"? or even in the slangish way, "Se owa kpa" etc?

And i think Nigerians do study enough english in school, and thats more of it.

Hot-angell, before you say anything is impossible, look at what others are doing. China and India have the issue and are making it work. Switzerland, one of the post peaceful countries in the worl, has about 3 official langaues and 8 or so other languages.

The real issue of promoting our language to the rest of the world seems lost in this discourse. The relative word - "promote" can mean diferent things. In this context, we are talking about culture, since our various languages is in itself, inherent in our culture. To this end, to employ the phrase - promoting our language - to me, entails, promoting our culture via films, music (Fela, and arguably KSA, are still icons outside of Nigeria). If only the Nigerian government had the foresight, all these years, to recognise all the revenue it could have accrued from promoting our erswhile indegenious festivals, ceremonies, (Eyo, Yam festival, Atilogu), etc, then the issue of taking our language seriously will not be an issue. After all, Kenya and Egypt haven't got "two heads" - to use that colloquial phase - and their tourism industry is booming every year.

When it comes to business and entertainment, any shrewd and astute business man will inform you that as long as there are loads of money to be made, and as long as they can derive self gratification from watching such shows, then the medium of communication is not necessarily a major issue. Is it any wonder why countries who adapt their films in a foreign language are still scooping Oscars (of course there will be subtitles to the film), and why Bollywood films are doing phenominally well and even eclipsing Hollywood in like for like box office flims?

We need to cherish what we have. To use this saying - A prophet is without honour in his hometown.

i don't think we should promote the languages. i heard somewhere that nigeria has like 250 languages . that's wrong there are larger countries in the world w/ only 1 language. nigeria should have only one language too. it will only increase or promote unity and peace. those 250 languages just make nigeria look like some divided country. how do you communicate when you can't speak the language of someone else. i for example don't even understand what my granma says when i visit sometimes. not that i don't understand yoruba but she speaks it different adn she doesn't speak english. it sucks.

Hi,

This topic made me sign on to this forum a litle quicker than I originaly wanted. I'm Belgian and my wife is Nigerian.
As a Belgian (Dutch speaking), the pivotal role a language has in one's development is extremely important. In my dealings with a lot of Nigerians, I found out that many of them, even though they did have a university education, were struggling with English, especially when it comes to grammar.

At first, I found this rather strange. After thinking it over, the root causes for this seemed obvious. I was drawing a parallel between the situation in Belgium more than fifty years ago and this observation. For a long time the Dutch speaking majority in Belgium was discriminated as French was the only official language and the only way for a Dutch speaker to achieve something, was by assimilating into the French culture of the higher classes. The devlopment of an intellectual class was severely hampered by this and Dutch speakers were 'de facto' second class citizens. There was a political movement that focussed on the emancipation of the Dutch speakers by introducting primary, secundary and later higher education in Dutch. Only after that could 'ordinary' Dutch speakers break through the glass ceiling in society.

Now, to come back to the importance of languages in Nigeria, from what I understand, all formal eduction is done in English, not in the children's mother tongue. Several studies have pointed out that to properly understand the structure of language, it is extremely important to be taught in your mother tongue, especially in primary education. If not the school results will be worse on average. Even the understanding of foreign (non mother tongue) languages fares better when you are educated in your mother tongue.

Only the very best student will be able to overcome this hurdle, especially when you take in consideration larger classes, lack of training materials, the standard of the teachers and the overall cost of eduction (school fees) in relation to the average income.

Having primary education in your mother tongue(s) would greatly raise the average achievements of the students.

You may right that average students might have difficulties with the English Language, but could this simply be because of their parent don't speak English to them at home? I mean, the situation for most Nigerian students is this:
- They (mostly) write English at school.
- They speak their local languages at home.

The difficulty that Nigerians have with English could be because:
- They don't read English books outside school. At all. Not even Harry Potter.
- They don't speak English outside school; instead they speak pidgin "English".
- Their teacher's don't really understand English either. For the same reasons.
(yes, this includes the English teachers!)

These are problems that can be solved in one generation, if we bring up the new generation to write and speak in English.

@nferyn: Can you link to the research papers that support your claim?

I think the problem is exactly that the language used outside the school is not standard English. They have unconsciently incorporated their local language as the standard for correct communication, without being aware of the formal rules that lie behind it.

When they are confronted at school with a 'foreign' language, they then apply the informal grammatical rules of their mother tongue to that language and that makes learning extra hard as they have to:
* learn the structure of a foreign language
* and additionally learn all the other subjects in a language they do not fully comprehend yet

The reasons you mention add to the difficulties precisely because - apart from the most intelligent students - do not feel comfortable in 'standard' English and many won't bother to even try. Starting to teach primary school students in a foreign language (i.e. English) is an unnecessary hurdle the students have got to jump over.

Once you are formally proficient in your own language, learning an new language becomes easier, as you have a solid frame of reference. This is especially true for children under 12, as their brains are still very much capable of 'naturally' learning foreign languages

As for the research papers, it's been a while since I was at the university, and I don't have all my courses anymore. I could look up the references though, but don't expect them shortly. A good starting point for the concept would be the bilingual eduction programmes in California (I'm sure enough information on that can be found on line)

Not all Nigerian language professors are idle and wasting time. The Bible Society Of Nigeria is still continuing the legacy of Sam Ajayi crowther who translated the bible to yoruba. They are still continuing that with other languages like Koma, Ibibio etc .
What we need is someone who can do the same for science- and arts-related books. Search for articles on Prof. Fafunwa's experiment in OAU. He taught a science subject to two groups (control group: English, Test group: Yoruba) and the test group perfomed excellently well when tested using diverse instruments.

The Internet is still english biased because The US is still in charge of it. (China is already threatening to create a separate one and european organisations including CERN are asking questions.) so that is not likely to be a problem.

As to English being the language of commerce, that might change in the coming years. China is funding chinese language studies in many african countries and other countries in the world. China will surpass the US as the dominant economy by 2015 so i won't be surprised if Shanghai becomes the new New York and Beijing as Washington DC.

@Seun, the roughly 48 million proficient [Yoruba] speakers will not agree with you.

I think english should be the official language of Nigeria. The reason I think so is because Nigeria is made up of many ethnic groups (I hate the word "tribe") and if we make yoruba, igbo, and hausa our main languages then it will cause problems for other ethnic groups because they'll want thier languages to be official too. I think a majority of Nigerians speak english whether Queens english or our national Creole (Pidgin english) so its best to leave it like it is. Besides english is the universal business language we should be lucky.

It's not about promoting Nigerian Languages, it's about how many Nigerian Languages there are to promote.

Most countires have one common language that everyone understands and speaks, unlike in Nigeria where we have over 50 ethnic languages. If we promote Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba what happens to the rest? It's not every Nigerian that speaks [one of] even those 3 major languages. We should promote what everyone understands.

I feel very embarrassed when some of my friends ask me, "what language do Nigerians speak?" I just smile and tell them Nigeria has a lot of languages. Other African countries have general languages.

english will always be our unifiying language but we need to promote the other ones. we can have more than one official language like south africa where they have news papers in zule and xhosa and spell check in those languages on the computer. switzerland seems to get along fine with more than one language, as does malaysia and india. it can be done if we want to do it

I believe language is a marker of cultural identity, therefore as Africans we shouldn't discard our own languages. While it is okay to learn English, French, Arabic, Portuguese,Spanish etc we just use them to speak with the rest of the world. But preserve our own languages for the sake of cultural identity, pride and distinction. The day an Igbo/Yoruba/Haus stops speaking their language, that day they give up their ethnic identity. Any Africans who give up their ethnic identity, have also given up their Africanity, hence they become black skinned Ennglish/French/Portuguese/Arabs. In fact, they will become neither African, nor Arab or European, but a Hybrid people. That's just my views.

PS People please be aware that the Nigerian Educational Research Development Council(NERDC) and the National language Centre(NLC) have their own programs on language development for Nigeria. They work with 9 major Nigerian languages: Fulfude(Fulani), Izon(Ijaw), Yoruba, Hausa, Edo, Igbo, Efik/Ibibio, Kanuri and Tiv, if I remember correctly. In addition. several states also have their own language programs eg Rivers state uses Khana and Gokana(Ogoni languages), Ikwere etc. Several smaller ethnic groups also have their own language development associations(Idoma and Igede in Benue state, Ebira/Igbira in Kogi state, Urhobo in Delta state etc). These people produce their own newspapers/newsletters, Bible passages in their own languages. Note that the Northern states routinely use Hausa in their state houses of Assembly, Ogun state House of Assembly uses Yoruba every Wednesday for deliberations, Anambra or Abia State House of Assembly uses Igbo on Wednesdays for its deliberations. I believe this is a good thing, sates where more than one language is spoken can use their languages within the local government area for council deliberations on certain days. Thsi favours a bilingual/trilingual system wher we have (Mothertongue + Pidgin + English). I propose this system across Nigeria.

Qapla!

I agree. India subsidizes newspapers written in languages other than Hindi or English. If we keep using english we will disenfranchise all those millions who speak languages other than english. thats why politicians can still bamboozle them. if the constitution and criminal code were freely available in all the local languages, we might have greater political awareness.

I agree with Africaman.
Our Language IS our Identity. Without it we woul be LOST.
The spanish here(In the U.S) speak their language and didn't give it up for english, even so that the Americans are [/i]forced [i] to learn spanish to communicate(spanish is the second language to english here in the states)
There is a high demand for people who can speak mandarin as translators.
We've been stripped and I think we're being stripped of our pride, of our identity.
If the spanish,germans,the french won't give up their language, why should we? no matter how many it is. I happen to think it is very intriguing. It just shows we're rich in culture. There is a reason we have different languages, the same reason there are a different races.We've been co-existing in Nigeria now for how many years without a problem why now?
I think it'll be sad if in another 50 years or so, our future generation won't have the opportunity to experience it(with migration and children not knowing how to speak their language now)

seun i think ur wrong, we shld uphold our language. why shld we give up our beautiful languages for something like english. i think we shld be able to speak english like the english man speaks french or spanish. Spanish ppl dont give up their language for english why shld we. Our kids need to be taught that their language, tribe and race is power not that if u dont speak english u dont belong.
personallly if i have kids/when i have kids they can speak english with their friends at skool or neother places but when u get home straight igbo or pidgin cuz u need to be taught ur language. my dad is probably one of the most educated people u can meet, he eats grammer like na say i bi fufu but ENGLISH IS NOT ACCEPTED IN MY HOUSE do not speak english to anybody because we dont to loose our heritage. all i say PRESERVE NIGERIA BY NOT BELITTELING THE LANGUAGE.
talk back if u think other wise

it's simply lack of development that makes us accept other people's language and even prefer it to ours. go to Spain, grmany and France. they stick to their language. on the other hand, we need an official language in Nigeria since we have different languages there. assuming we all understand just one language, then it would av been so easy to stick to it.

yummy:

it's simply lack of development that makes us accept other people's language and even prefer it to ours. go to Spain, germany and France. they stick to their language. on the other hand, we need an official language in Nigeria since we have different languages there. assuming we all understand just one language, then it would av been so easy to stick to it.

You can have several official languages. Belgium is very small (only 10 million people), yet we have 3 official languages.

but remember the language has to be the one everyone understands. For example, Hausa doesn't understand ibo or yoruba.

I believe we are better off with English as our lingua franca,or better still,give Alex Igbineweka's guosa a chance. .

We need English more than we realise.How many languages do you think we speak in Nigeria? I'm sure there will be another war if we choose some major languages over others,even if only 20 people speaks them ,trust Nigerians now
Besides,in the next 20+ years,young people will be engaging the services of elderly people to translate from English .

We can promote our indigenous languages but it shouldn't affect English in any way.Eglish as at today(i don't know about tomorrow) is the lingua franca of the international business community,forget the story about mandarin and french replacing English.

I strongly believe that english language should be the best because here in Nigeria there are teens of hundred of languages but there's nothin' wrong in promoting the indeginious languages like hausa, yoruba & igbo.

I strongly believe that english language should be the best because here in Nigeria there are teens of hundred of languages but there's nothin' wrong in promoting the indeginious languages like hausa, yoruba & igbo.

I strongly believe that english language should be the best because here in Nigeria there are teens of hundred of languages but there's nothin' wrong in promoting the indeginious languages like hausa, yoruba & igbo.

I'd say that most contributors have good points already. However, I don't completely agree with Seun and nferyn on this issue. For the most part, nferyn would need to let us know what "standard English" really is. People who use that term in many respects are "promoting" their own cultural English as the 'standard' while ignoring or disregarding the 'English[b]es[/b]' of other speakers.

No wait. Did I just say 'Englishes'? Oh yes, I did - because there is such a thing as  such!

As far as promoting one's native language is concerned, I'd hoot for promoting our indigenous languages. There's every reason for us to do so. The dangers of not doing so are now partly being demonstrated in the fact that, many Nigerians are now able to speak English and yet have no clue about their own native languages! True, English (whatever type of standard or unstandard English) may be the international language of communication between many nations and among many people. But that is not sufficient reason to play down on our own languages.

Let's remember that even the English language we speak today is a 'cindarella' of many skirts, so to speak. She wouldn't be the darling language endeared to many tongues today if it were not for the other languages she'd borrowed from. How many French and Greek terms do we often use without realizing that they were all borrowed from those other languages.

A few examples. One of the loves of ladies around the world is shopping, and many such ladies little realize that the English word "boutique" is actually a French word! Another social love of the ladies is to be taken out by a gentleman to a "buffet" - do such ladies smacking their lips realize that also is a French word? Ah, the other loan-words from French that make up a lady's love: "champagne", and "chauffeur", and "fiance", and "rendezvous" and . . . "vis a vis". All these French words carried over to the English language will simply make any lady's day perfect! _{Hey guys, if you try them anyday, don't blame pilgrim.1 for the magic of an empty wallet after the test!}

You see, the French have never been ashamed to promote their lingo - so much so that the language of the people, English, has had to borrow and retain words from the French!

I beg una, Nigerians should never be shy in promoting their languages. If we had taken this step long ago, who would have been surprised today to find an 'oyibo' man or woman borrowing words from us to express certain wonderful ideas? Let's try some: there's no better word to express 'kpomo' or 'shaki' - two of my fav meat delicacies! Afterall, who wants to cook "hides-and-skin" or "towel-and-sponge" in a cultural stew?

What's yours? Abeg speak am well-well! Nigeria, I keep saying, is a unique country!

Adios. _{(Oh, that's Spanish for 'farewell/goodbye').}

Africa is difficult because of the numerous ethnic languages. People keep comparing the French, the Spanish and the German but the situation is not analogical because those countries have ONE language. If Nigeria, or any other African country, had one language, there would be no debate.

Also, to the Belgian posting, multilingual countries have their own issues as well. How can a country unite when not all of its citizens can communicate with one another? What does it mean to be Belgian, if Belgians cannot all communicate with each other? The national anthem, the constitution and laws have to be in three languages. That sucks. And Canada is facing that issue right now, with the French-speaking provinces wanting independence because they feel like outsiders in the majority English-speaking Canadian government.

I think there are two solutions, either continue with English as the main and official language of Nigeria, or adopt an African tongue, standardize it, and make that the primary and official language. I'm thinking of Swahili for example. It makes no sense to have 20 different official or national languages.

Now that's not to say that I don't think people should not speak their ethnic languages, but there needs to be one language everyone understands. Oh, and I think Nigerians should stop speaking pidgin! It's terrible! It really worsens some people's ability to learn standard English.

Fufu King:

Africa is difficult because of the numerous ethnic languages. People keep comparing the French, the Spanish and the German but the situation is not analogical because those countries have ONE language. If Nigeria, or any other African country, had one language, there would be no debate.

I'm not so sure if this inference holds solid grounds.

Take, for instance, the situation with Spain. Actually, Spain speaks more languages than ONE! The most widely recognized language may be Spanish; but there are also other languages such as Euskera (spoken in the northern central area), Castilian (which we know as 'Spanish' and is the official language), Catalan (spoken in some areas of Aragon and Murcia, and is mother-tongue to about 6 million people), and Galician.

The point is not whether Nigeria speaks many languages or not. Rather, it's about promoting our own indigenous languages. This may be difficult if there are no strong enough reasons to do so. But I doubt if anyone would applaud the extinction of their own language.

pilgrim.1:

I'm not so sure if this inference holds solid grounds.

Take, for instance, the situation with Spain. Actually, Spain speaks more languages than ONE! The most widely recognized language may be Spanish; but there are also other languages such as Euskera (spoken in the northern central area), Castilian (which we know as 'Spanish' and is the official language), Catalan (spoken in some areas of Aragon and Murcia, and is mother-tongue to about 6 million people), and Galician.

The point is not whether Nigeria speaks many languages or not. Rather, it's about promoting our own indigenous languages. This may be difficult if there are no strong enough reasons to do so. But I doubt if anyone would applaud the extinction of their own language.

Ah, you're correct on Spain. I forgot about their situation.

But what about other European countries like England, Portugal, France, and Italy. These other countries don't have the multilingual issues. Well, the UK has Scottish, but even then almost all Scots HAVE to be fluent in English in order to function in the UK society, so they end up being bilingual anyway.

The same is true of Spain. Even though you have those other languages, such as Galician, Catalan and Euskara, EVERYONE in the whole country can speak Castillian. And they can speak it as a mother tongue.

@fufu king, in england you have both the scottish gaelic and the irish gaelic tongues. You also have the welsh tongues too and on the isle of Man, a small island in the UK, they speak a totally different language. that they dont promote them is a tragedy that WE are trying to avoid.

As to whether we should, virtually every body on this page agrees anyway. enough said on that.

Our languages must not wither away. As a result, Igbo Youths UK offers free Igbo lessons to young Igbo people in the U.K. If you are an Igbo and interested in Igbo language, join for free at: www.icsn.co.uk