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Democratisation of Language Use in Public Domains in Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Conrad Max Benedict Brann
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Extract

The wealth of ethno-linguistic units in Nigeria has been the object of anthropological, linguistic, historical, and political study since the country was first so named at the beginning of this century. But since independence in 1960, the federal motto of ‘Unity in Diversity’ has raised a central principle of language use which has been gradually articulated in successive constitutions and white papers on national policy in the educational and cultural spheres.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 639 - 656
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 By comparison with other national mottoes, as may be seen in Reyntjens, Filipet al. (eds.), Constitutiones Africae (Brussels), Vols I (1988), II (1989), and III (1990), passim, Nigeria's seems to be the most apposite, well expressing the Federation's constituency and aspirations.Google Scholar

2 Sunday Ajulo, Babalola, ‘Reflections on Sections 51 and 91 of the 1979 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria’, in African Affairs (London), 89, 357, 10 1990, p. 514.Google Scholar

3 Ibid.

4 The 24 provinces are listed in Ekanem, I. I., The 1963 Nigerian Census: a critical appraisal (Benin, 1972), tables 4ff. The similarity between what existed before 1967 and the present 30 states is revealing, and shows that earlier administrative boundaries took due cognisance of ethnolinguistic realities.Google Scholar

5 Federal Republic of Nigeria, ‘States (Creation and Transitional Provisions) Decree, 1991’, in Official Gazette (Lagos), 78, 54, 10 1991.Google Scholar

6 The original inhabitants of ‘Britain’, whence also Britany in France, which was peopled by ‘Britons’ from what is now Cornwall and Wales, were all Celtic-speakers, as were most ‘Europeans’ before that continent was covered by Romanic, Germanic, and Slavonic peoples. The notable revival of regional languages, such as Catalan, Basque, and Galician in Spain, goes pari passu with the search for a ‘lingua franca’ for Europe, cutting across the Babel of national languages. Such problems of regionalism and federalism are similar to those faced by Nigeria.Google Scholar

7 I have used several neologisms in this article: (i) colinguism, meaning the acceptance of more than one official language, was coined by Mme Renée Balibar, the French linguistic historian. These are my own: (ii) autoglossia, meaning a people's own language use, and (iii) schizoglossia, meaning separation between spoken and written language use, as common in modern Africa and mediaeval Europe. In addition, (iv) exglossia/endoglossia are terms used by Heinz Kloss in his polito-linguistic works; while (v) chthonolect (of the soil) for a ‘territorial’ language, (vi) choralect for a regional language, (vii) demolect (of the people), meaning a vehicular language or ‘lingua franca’, (viii) hierolect, meaning sacred, and (ix) politolect for the language of administration (originally of the city-state) are mine. Plans are being made to publish a trilingual (English/French/German) terminology for socio-linguistics in Africa.Google Scholar

8 Bamgbose, Ayo, Language and the Nation: the language question in sub-Saharan Africa (Edinburgh, 1991), p. 82,Google Scholar quoting from Weinstein, Brian, The Civic Tongue: political consequences of language choice (New York, 1983), p. 138.Google ScholarCf. also Coulmes, Florian (ed.), Language and Economy (Oxford, 1990).Google Scholar

9 Federal Republic of Nigeria, Cultural Policy for Nigeria (Lagos, 1988), section 9.2.2.Google Scholar

10 Heine, Bernd, ‘Vertical and Horizontal Communication’, in Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa (Nairobi), 4, 1, 1979, pp. 106–19,Google Scholar and ‘Horizontale und vertikale Medien’, in his Sprache, Gesellschaft und Kommunikation in Afrika (Munich, 1979), pp. 146–50.Google Scholar

11 My four ‘E's have been included in talks on the use of language over the broadcasting network in Nigeria.Google Scholar

12 Whether to classify Pidgin as being a part of the continuum of what might be described as ‘Englishes’ in Nigeria, or to look upon it as a separate language, is a matter of definition and outlook. I would be inclined towards the former, in socio-linguistic terms, although the recent publication by Elugbe, Ben O. and Omamor, Augusta, Nigerian Pidgin: background and prospects (Ibadan, 1991), takes the latter view.Google Scholar

13 Ndolo, Ike S., ‘The Case for Promoting the Nigerian Pidgin Language’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 27, 4, 12 1989, p. 683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 According to the Old Testament, the Israel ethno-linguistic community, living in the multilingual city of Babylon, lost their ethnic language after adopting Aramaic, the lingua franca, which they subsequently took back to Israel as their official language. The story of Babel provides one of the earliest warnings about the lack of inter-communication between ethno-linguistic groups in new conurbations, and may well be what is actually happening to many of the inhabitants in Nigeria's urban ‘melting-pots.’Google Scholar

15 The study of urban socio-linguistics is fast developing in Southern and Eastern Africa, and should be encouraged at Nigerian universities where most linguists have been almost exclusively concerned with territorial, i.e. settled language groups.Google Scholar

16 See Brann, C. M. B., ‘Language Use in Maiduguri Metropolitan: a preliminary report’, in Calvet, L. J. (ed.), Des Langues et des villes (Paris, 1992), pp. 141–54.Google Scholar

17 Cf.Scotton, Carol Myers, Choosing a Lingua Franca in an African Capital (Edmonton, Alberta, 1972).Google Scholar

18 Although the Christian Churches jointly resolved some years ago at Chiang Mai in Thailand to limit translations to languages spoken by at least a million people, in Nigeria over 100 languages have scriptural translations, including versions of the New Testament in Izi, Ezaa, and Ikwo, perceived by some linguists (and the Anambra State House of Assembly) to be dialects of Igbo. Whatever the basic religious zeal fuelling these translations, the danger of ‘glossotomy’ or language-splitting is always present. However, there is no doubt that it is the Christian minorities that have insisted on language maintenance, often as a result of reducing their languages to writing (the process of graphisation) for scriptural purposes. This, after all, had been the origin of a number of modern standard European languages.Google Scholar

19 Wolpe, Howard, Urban Politics in Nigeria: a study of Port Harcourt (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1974), pp. 29–31.Google Scholar