Indigenous
Languages and Development in Nigeria
By A. H. Amfani
1. INTRODUCTION The present Institute for
Nigerian Languages of the University of Nigeria is not a new institution.
It is the former National Institute for Nigerian Languages (NINLAN).
Indeed the function and the objectives are very much the same.
Essentially, the Institute is all out to cater for the development and
sustenance of all Nigerian languages. However, under the new
administration of the Institute and especially under the stewardship of
Professor Clara Ikekeonwu, and in line with the vogue around, and more so one
initiated by women of caliber, we shall all expect a re-branding of the entire
activities of the institute. This public lecture is part of the
re-branding.
I have been called upon, in my capacity as the President
of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria, to talk on the topic Indigenous
Languages and Development in Nigeria. The topic sounds simple and straight
forward, but on a close examination, it is elusive and controversial. On
one hand, it is not easy to say with some degree of precision, the number of
indigenous languages available in Nigeria. On the other hand, it is
equally not easy to convince people that indigenous Nigerian languages have any
significant role to play in the overall development of the Nigerian
nation. My task in this talk is to try and give a picture of the
indigenous Nigerian languages with a view to sensitizing Nigerians on the need
to appreciate their mother tongues. Another task is to explain how
indigenous Nigerian languages can play significant roles in various sheds of
development. It must be pointed out here and now that development is a
very wide concept and subsumes quite a number of issues.
I divide the lecture into three major sections.
There is a section on Nigeria and its indigenous languages. Here, we
remind ourselves what the political entity Nigeria is: How it came about and
its present structure. Another section discusses the concept of
development and various forms of development. The third section attempts
to show how indigenous languages can be meaningfully engaged in various forms
of development, and especially scientific and technological development.
2. NIGERIA AND ITS INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES The
present Nigerian nation came into being in 1914 after the amalgamation of
Northern and Southern Nigeria, and Lagos protectorate. Nigeria is an
independent country located in the sub Saharan West Africa. According to the
National Census figures of 2001, Nigeria has an estimated population of 120
million.
In 1967, Nigeria was divided into twelve states.
Today, Nigeria has a total of 36 states and a capital territory. The 36
states are further divided into 6 geo-political zones for ease of
administration and even development. The geo-political zones are (i)
North West, (ii) North East, (iii) North Central, (iv) South West, (v)
South East, and (vi) South-South. Each zone has its own share of concentration
of languages.
Grimes (2000) reports that there are about 500 languages
in Nigeria. These languages comprise both minority and majority languages
as well as some few non-Nigeria languages such as English, Arabic and French.
The classification of Nigeria languages into major
and minor is essentially based on numerical strength of speakers of each
language. The so called majority languages usually have millions of
speakers, while minority languages tend to have few thousands or hundreds of
speakers.
The development of Nigerian languages to the level of
attaining proper codification in the sense of Urua (2005) (i.e. having standard
orthography, dictionaries, grammars, full documentation), was initially carried
out by the missionaries and British colonial administration (compare R. C.
Abraham who wrote Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Tiv and Somali dictionaries), and
currently by indigenous linguists. It must be pointed out that only few
Nigerian languages attained the desired level of codification. This
position has a direct consequence on whether or not a language can be engaged
in the attainment of some forms of development.
3. DEVELOPMENT The verb ‘develop’ means ‘(cause
to ) grow larger, fuller or more mature, organised’. ‘Development’ means ‘developing
or being developed (in all senses)’. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
of Current English). This is the ordinary meaning and popular understanding of
the term ‘development’.
Thus, development can be in respect of an individual or
society; it can also be religious, political, linguistic, technological,
scientific, military, etc. etc.
A more conceptualized meaning of ‘development’ is
usually added to any form of development under discussion. We need to draw
attention here on an important distinction between the development of Nigerian
indigenous languages in a purely linguistic sense, and the role of Nigeria
Languages in the development of other spheres of this life. This being the
case, we ask the following questions:
i. How linguistically
developed are indigenous Nigerian languages?
ii. Which indigenous
Nigerian languages can meaningfully be employed in the development of other
spheres of life?
(This second question forms the
topic of section four)
How linguistically developed are indigenous Nigeria
languages? This issue has been discussed in various quarters (see
the cited references) and the general feeling is that only few Nigerian
languages are developed in the sense of full codification. Since there are
differences in levels of development amongst the indigenous languages, we may
wish to advocate that each language should be treated on its own merit. Thus,
languages with fully developed orthographies, and which are used in schools and
in other sphere of life (politics, evangelism, newspaper, etc.) are likely to be
used for serious development purposes such as scientific and technological
development.
Less developed indigenous Nigerian languages on the
other hand, are to be uplifted for use in initial development stages especially
personal development. Less developed Nigeria languages must be used for the
acquisition of native intelligence and native wisdom which are enshrined in
languages (proverbs, idiomatic expressions, tongue twisters, stories etc.).
This can be achieved through full mastery of the language at the spoken level.
Notice that native intelligence and wisdom which are enshrined in the language,
are the essential ingredients for any future development and the breakthroughs
to be initiated by individual speakers in whatever form.
4. NIGERIAN LANGUAGES FOR PARTICIPATION IN
ALL FORMS OF DEVELOPMENT
4.1 Individual or personal development Let
us state the plain fact that every individual needs a language to communicate
in his immediate environment. The ability to speak one’s own mother tongue
(linguistic development) is the surest identity of being a member of a
particular linguistic group. A good mastery of one’s own mother tongue provides
the initial base for thinking in one’s own mother tongue. The ability to think
in one’s own mother tongue provides the much needed solid foundation for an
individual’s literary and scientific development. For the sake of true
cultural identity and proper grounding in the ability to use one’s own mother
tongue for literary and scientific thinking, people must develop their
indigenous languages.
4.2 Linguistic development Linguistic
development is seen here partly as the attainment of proper codification by a
given language. In addition, the language must also be in constant use by its
speakers. Most indigenous Nigerian languages are yet to be fully codified. They
lack systematic descriptions and are not documented. Speakers of indigenous
Nigeria languages must strive to have their languages codified. It is pertinent
for speakers of non-codified languages to note that gone are the days when
government codifies languages. It is now the responsibility of ethnic
communities to sponsor the codification of their languages. The codification
will facilitate development on various fronts. The writing facility can allow
native speakers of a language to put down their thoughts on paper and such
documents will facilitate development on various fronts. Fully codified
languages are taught in schools due to availability of orthographies. The
writing facility can allow native speakers of a language to put down their
thoughts on paper and such documents will facilitate faster growth and
development. It must be mentioned here and again that one of the major
functions of the language institute is to facilitate for the codification of
indigenous Nigerian languages. Indigenous language groups must contact
the Language Institute for this valuable service. Linguistic development
is the first step towards any other meaningful and desirable development.
Scientific or technological development for example, cannot be attained by a
people who had not developed linguistically. Suffice it to say that all
technologically developed nations and societies must have attained wonderful
linguistic development prior to the scientific or technological development.
4.3 Social Development Every
society needs to develop socially. Social development includes religious
or spiritual development, political development and cultural development.
Every society is unique with respect to possessing a language. The
language is the only true identity of the society.
Religion Members
of a given society may decide to adopt a particular faith as a religion.
Religious expressions, prayers, incantations and other religious matters are
expressed via language. It should be noted that only a fully developed
language is conveniently used in religion and religious development.
Thus, languages that are least developed can hardly be used in any serious
religious enterprise. For example, in the Nigerian context, only the major
languages could be said to be meaningfully engaged in the translation of the
major scriptures. The major languages have developed reasonably and are
therefore used effectively in religious matters such as preaching, praying,
translation and general evangelical work.
Politics The
role of language in Politics cannot be overemphasized. For a successful
political delivery, a language must be rich enough to provide the required
vocabulary and related terms for an adequate political expression.
Political activities such as campaigns and their slogans, speeches, and other
forms of political persuasions and bargains, are expressed in languages, and
only languages that are developed politically can effectively be utilized for
political purposes. A further development is the ability to teach
political science and political philosophy in a given language. Native
administrative wisdom and political philosophy can be expressed in most
indigenous languages. However, the science of politics, and especially
modern politics and its concomitant terms and concepts, can only be expressed
in languages that have attained higher level of political development and are
fully codified.
4.4 Scientific and Technological Development Of
all the spheres of development, Nigerians and indeed most other people, see
scientific and technological development as the only true development that
societies should seriously focus attention on. This being the case, most
people can not imagine the role of language in scientific and technological
development. Other people, as contained in the classification by
Matemilola (1999), are of the opinion that only English language can be used in
scientific and technological development.
Stages in Scientific and Technological Development Most
people are not aware that the role of language in scientific and technological
development is seriously graded and a language can gradually attain the
highest level of participation in the description and documentation of the
scientific knowledge.
It has been mentioned earlier on that for a language to
participate in any meaningful scientific and technological development, such
language must be fully codified. The codification will allow for the
writing of scientific terms and the translation of same. At the highest
level, a language is used for the documentation of scientific literature and
discussion of same. Scientists at this level, do their scientific
thinking in this particular language.
Indigenous Nigerian Languages in
Scientific and Technological Development It is true that some
Nigerian languages have made head way in their effort to attain scientific and
technological development. These languages are codified and for quite
some time, have been taught in schools and are used in various scientific
endeavours. Three Nigerian languages, namely, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba are taught
at all levels of education, i.e. from nursery to the university. There
were early efforts to develop these languages scientifically by translating
scientific and technological terms and concepts for pedagogical purposes.
Amfani (1999) reported the effort by John M. Dalziel (1916) to write a book
entitled A Hausa Botanical Vocabulary, which is a collection of over one
thousand Hausa botanical names with their Latin equivalents. Other
efforts in the colonial period include E. A. Clark’s (1913) Hundred Birds of
the Niger Province, Hanns Vischer’s (1936) Vocabulary of Nigerian Names
of Trees, Shrubs and Herbs and Hausa Language Board’s Glossaries of
Technical Terms (1959). According to Amfani (1999), ‘these works
constitute the early attempts to provide necessary base for scientific and
technological advancement’. Similar works abound in Igbo and Yoruba. Very
recently, Microsoft (Nigeria) in conjunction with Alt-I, Ibadan provided a Language
Interface Pack (Hausa/Igbo/Yoruba Glossary) which was a careful translation
of all computer terms in the three languages. Microsoft has carried out
similar effort for some notable African languages.
5. RESIDUAL ISSUES The
threat of globalization will surely affect quite a number of indigenous
Nigerian languages to the point of extinction. The negative attitude of
speakers towards the development and well being of their languages is most
unfortunate and must be changed if only to allow some degree of continuity for
the languages.
With regard to overall development in various spheres,
perhaps Nigeria may adopt the Russian solution in which languages were
officially chosen to develop in certain fields. Thus, government may
decide to make Igbo the language of technology, and throughout the country,
technology must be taught only in Igbo at all levels of education. Other
languages will be selected in the same fashion for the study of other facets of
development. For languages that could not be used in certain spheres of
development for lack of codification and other issues, effort must be made to
document them properly and keep on using them.
6. CONCLUSION The focus of this
presentation had been an exploration into the capability of indigenous Nigerian
languages to participate meaningfully in development in all its facets.
It has been pointed out that languages differ in their ability to partake in
certain facets of development. However, it was shown that every language
can meaningfully be used for development since development has a large sphere,
and that a language may develop in a particular sphere even though it requires
certain qualities to allow it participate in other spheres of development.
Scientific and technological development is more popular
and also very difficult to attain, and especially when a language does not
attain full codification. This being the case, individual speakers of
less developed languages and their communities should concentrate in using
their language for development in other less demanding spheres. Further
effort towards full codification, teaching and general usage will one day
qualify such languages for full participation in scientific and technological
development.
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Technologies & Emhai Press.
A. H. Amfani, Ph.D., was a guest speaker at a public
lecture organized by the Institute of Nigerian languages, University of Nigeria
Aba Campus on March 30, 2009. The lecture was published online in 2010 by the Linguistic
Association of Nigeria c/o Department of Nigerian Languages Usmanu
Danfodiyo University, P.M.B.2346, Sokoto , Sokoto State, Nigeria. Tel.:
08035881796 e-mail: ahmedamfani@yahoo.com
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