“Efforts should be made to revitalize the minority languages in Nigeria such that our children can grow to speak and write in our indigenous languages.”
These were the counsel of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jos, Prof. Sebastian Mamaiko at the 29th Annual Conference of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria tagged CLAN 2016 with the theme “Language and Linguistic Diversity: Documentation and Revitalization of Minority Languages for Sustainable Development”.
The Vice Chancellor, speaking through his representative, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Prof. Tor Iorapuu, which took place at the ASUU Secretariat, Naraguta Campus, said this “August gathering could not have come at a better time”.
“Attention should be drawn to the documentation and revitalization of minority languages which have not enjoyed their places thereby leading to their gradual disappearance and decline in cultural values instead of fostering national integration amidst diversities”, he said.
Prof. Tor Ioorapu, appreciated members of LAN who have pledged to donate books and other materials to the Institution as a way of resuscitating the Naraguta Campus library which was engulfed by fire over a month ago.
While welcoming participants of this year’s event, the Chairman of the event, Prof. Andrew Haruna and Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Gushua, Yobe State, represented by Mr. Ahmed Amfani, expressed delight over the support received from the University management towards the event.
He specially commended the University of Maiduguri for being a part of the conference despite their financial constraints.
He said “I urge all participants to avail themselves for the workshops during this event, as experts have been brought to enlighten and educate us. I also hope that the University management will consider establishing a Center for Linguistic Languages in the Department as obtained in other institutions.”
This year’s conference had the Executive Secretary, National Education Research and Development (NERD), Prof. Ismaila Junaidu, represented by M.M Mukaila, as its keynote speaker. While delivering his lecture, Prof. Ismaila Junaidu said Nigeria is a ‘uniquely language-diverse nation with more than 500 languages spoken’. According to him, there is a concentration of languages that are spoken not as common and widely as the others.
“However, the whole gamut of language diversity can be viewed within the spectacle of the coexistence of languages, their distribution and number of speakers and usage within the linguistic spaces or habitats, so as to indicate their validity” he said.
He added that a lot of factors are responsible for language endangerment. Some of them include domination of major languages that are seen as language of political, economic, social and inter-ethnic interaction, domination of use of English as the official language in the global scene, lack of documentation, codification and standardization of many Nigerian languages, thus making them more vulnerable to changes that erode these languages, movement and migration due to insecurity, famine and poverty and lack of a legislative framework for language policy and planning in Nigeria.
In proffering solutions, the one-time lecturer at the Bayero University, Kano said that there should be adequate sanitization on the importance of sustainability of minority languages in Nigeria backed with language orientation, as well as a synergy between stakeholders and institutional policies.
Since 1989, when the conference was first held, the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (LAN) has had several conferences leading to the 29th Annual Conference, with the University of Jos Community as its host.
