But in the last twenty or thirty years, Naijá has become one of the most important, most widely spread, and perhaps the most ethnically neutral lingua franca used in the country today.Ĭurrent estimates show that around 5 million people speak Naijá as first language while over 75 million people use it as a second language in Nigeria and in Nigerian Diaspora communities in Europe, America and other parts of the world.Īlthough English is still remains the country’s official language and the language of education in Nigeria, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba prominently feature as regional languages in the northern, eastern and western parts of the country respectively. This has made it possible for several different lingua francas to exist across Nigeria. Nigeria is one huge and complex multilingual community with several different languages used within the public and private social space from city to city in Nigeria. Today the language has more speakers than any other language in the country. By the 1900s, the now stable English-based Naijá started spreading across the emerging Nigerian nation.Īnd by the time Nigeria gained her independence from Britain in 1960, the language had not only become popular among those who could not speak standard British English but became commonly spoken among the multilingual populations of the big cities. In time English, the language of the English, supplanted Portuguese as the major lexifier of Naijá. With the introduction of English into the Nigerian environment, the existing Portuguese-based pidgin of the Niger Delta started evolving in the new direction of the language of the new politically dominant group, the English. These changing interests came to mean change for the language situation of the Niger Delta. But between the 1700s and the 1800s, this initial interest metamorphosed from trade to religion, from religion to education, and to a colonial focus. The English were initially interested in trade. They were then followed by the French who visited the region intermittently till even after the English arrived in 1650 AD to take effective control of trade in the region. Since the Niger Delta region was made up of diverse communities of Annang, Edo, Efik, Ibibio, Igbo, Ijaw, Isoko, Itsekiri and Isoko speaking peoples with no known or well-established common language of communication, it was therefore easy for many Niger Deltans to learn the Portuguese-based pidgin of the Niger Delta at that time.Īfter the Portuguese left the region, the Dutch followed and traded at the eastern end of the region for about half a century. This, of course became crucial to the evolution of Naijá, which started out as a Portuguese-based pidgin in the Niger Delta. And this brought their language close to languages of the Niger Delta for an extended period of time. They established schools and churches where they taught Portuguese and the doctrines of Christianity in the region. They established strong diplomatic ties between some of the great kingdoms of the region and Portugal. They started trading with the people of the region from as early as 1469AD. The Portuguese were the first group of Europeans to visit and explore coastal Nigeria, especially around the area now known geo-politically as the Niger Delta. And this marked the beginning of an extended contact between the indigenous peoples of coastal Nigeria and visiting groups of Europeans. The country was first visited by European explorers and traders in the mid 15th Century. The country is an amalgamation of ethnically diverse groups of people speaking well over 500 different languages. Nigeria has a population of more than 162 million people (July 2011 United Nations estimate) scattered across its 923,768 square kilometers of swamps, forests and savannahs. By David Esizimetor and Francis Egbokhare
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