Language Research

6. Language in everyday life: The use of language in everyday life, e.g. education, broadcasting, and other

The official language of the country is English, which is taught in primary schools and used for instruction in secondary schools and universities. All officials with education to secondary school level or beyond speak English and use it to cross the language barriers formed by Nigeria's ethnic diversity. Many in the university-trained elite use English as one of the languages in their home and/or send their children to preschools that provide a head start in English-language instruction.

In addition to English, “pidgin” has been used as a lingua franca in the south (and in adjoining Cameroon) for more than a century among the uneducated population. By 1990 it was being used in popular songs, radio and television dramas, novels, and even newspaper cartoons. While in the north, Southerners spoke pidgin to one another, but Hausa was the lingua franca of the region and was spreading rapidly as communications and travel provided a need for increased understanding. Counting English, the use of which was expanding as rapidly as Hausa, many Nigerians were at least trilingual. This language capability usually included a local vernacular, a wider African lingua franca, and English. Given the long history of trade and markets that stimulated contacts across local ethnic units, multilingualism was a very old and an established adaptation. Such multilingualism has enabled communication among different ethnic groups historically.

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