Linguists Urge Investment in Nigerian Languages
The Linguistic Association of Nigeria used its 37th annual conference in Abuja to argue that the country has spent long enough declaring support for its languages and now needs money, data and working tools if those languages are to carry education, research and technology rather than survive only as ceremony.
Professor Gbenga Ibileye, delivering the keynote, said Nigeria should build the practical architecture of a multilingual state: text and speech corpora, digital dictionaries and lexical databases, with first claim given to languages that are poorly documented or already at risk. He proposed a Nigerian Language Technology Network to put linguists in the same room as computer scientists, artificial-intelligence researchers, software developers, teachers and the communities that still speak the languages.
Professor Ibileye also called for a national research programme on multilingual education so that claims about literacy, numeracy, bilingual classrooms, teacher readiness and learning outcomes rest on Nigerian evidence rather than imported assumption, and for a Language Resource and Technology Fund – paid for by government, universities, international organisations, companies and philanthropists, to finance documentation, digitisation, teacher training and language software. The argument, he said, should stop being English versus mother tongue. The system he described would keep English strong while giving Nigerian languages work to do.
Professor Gideon Omachonu, LAN’s national president, said the association would go on speaking as a scholarly authority on the country’s languages and feeding evidence into language and education policy. He listed recent institutional steps: formal registration, life and corporate membership, and a stronger fellowship.
New fellows and honorary fellows were invested during the meeting, and awards were given for scholarship and for service to the association. LAN presents itself as a foundation for the study, documentation and development of local languages across Nigeria.
