Reversing the Endangerment Trend of Indigenous Nigerian Languages: Challenges and Prospects
Keywords:
endangerment, indigenous languages, advocacy campaignsAbstract
The study examines the challenges and prospects of reversing the endangerment state of indigenous Nigerian languages. It establishes the need to revive an endangered or dead language, but notes that there are challenges that should be considered before embarking on such an enterprise in order to achieve a good result. Some of the identified challenges are: the negative attitude of the people and government towards the languages, lack of self-enhancing opportunities in the use of the languages, the influence of English and the faulty Nigerian political structure. Also, the study considers the prospects of revitalizing the languages by highlighting the experiences and successes recorded by the Hebrew, Welsh and Maori language groups. Finally the study recommends ways of overcoming the identified challenges. These include restructuring Nigerian political system, making the languages more functional by creating self-enhancing opportunities in the use of the languages and engaging interest groups in language advocacy campaigns.
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