Prof. Offiong Offiong of the Department of Linguistics and Communication Studies, University of Calabar, says many of the minority languages in Nigeria are dying.
Offiong told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday, in Calabar that languages were intertwined with cultures, adding “if a language dies, its culture dies with it.
“Culture is the heritage of language and we cannot have it without language; we need to start taking steps to ensure the survival of our languages.
“The Kiong and Efut languages (spoken in some communities in Cross River) are almost dead and if we do nothing, in the next three generations from now all the other minority languages will also die.
“The reason why Africans and especially Nigerians lose their languages is because they do not love their languages and so treat them with levity even though they are divine gifts from God.
“The first thing any parent should do is to consciously ensure that his or her language is transferred to the children through a process called inter-generational transfer or risk extinction of the language.
“Today, many of our languages are endangered, if we do not maintain and revive them, the journey to loss and death already stares us at the face,’’ Offiong said.
The don maintained that as a country, Nigeria needed a well articulated, coherent and comprehensive national language policy and its implementation strategy which should be pluralistic and accommodate the minority languages.
According to him, the more than 555 languages spoken in Nigeria deserved harnessing and efficient management the same way other resources are managed.
He suggested that languages should be managed through a direct government policy entrenched in the constitution.
Offiong added that Nigerian languages should be documented with orthographies, and taught in schools, adding that if that was done, it would be difficult for the languages to die.
