A lingua franca is any language which a country with different languages chooses as an official language to be used for communication and interactions among the different ethnic groups. A lingua franca is needed in every multi-ethnic country like India, Nigeria, Indonesia and many other countries. A lingua franca is supposed to be one of the languages spoken in a country and which all the native languages must adopt. Nigeria’s official language is English which has been imposed on the peoples by the British colonial masters. English language is therefore the lingual franca and by extension the national language in Nigeria.
Official language is important and desirable as it makes communications and interactions among peoples with diverse languages, cultures and customs within the same country easy. Language is the prime medium for communication. Lingua franca is good as it promotes unity and patriotism. It is through a people or a country’s language that the culture or civilization of the people can be effectively promoted. The adoption of a language as a country’s lingua franca presupposes that there is already a large population of native speakers of it.
Adopting a lingua franca is fraught with many problems. One of such problems is that different peoples or speakers of their own mother tongue are wont to resist any attempt to deprive them of their linguistic autonomy by imposing another people’s language on them. In India for instance, there have been violent and tragic language riots. In Nigeria, the various subtle attempts to adopt one of the three main languages, namely, Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba as the lingua franca have failed. What we now have is the ‘WAZOBIA’ which is a caricature of a lingua franca clouration.
One of the main factors of choosing a language as a lingua franca is the large number of its native speakers and their geographical spread. But in Nigeria, using this criterion is problematic because Nigerians show unusual interest in census matters and some groups will do anything to influence their numerical strength for certain advantages over the others and most Nigerian ethnic groups are not in a hurry to surrender their linguistic and cultural independence on the altar of lingua franca.
The desire for adoption of an indigenous language as an official language for Nigeria is necessary, but as no ethnic group would want its language to go into extinction, I foresee violent oppositions from all fronts against this noble idea. However I pray for the time when Nigerians will be proud of their heritage and consider an indigenous language good enough to be the lingua franca of our dear great nation.
Aminat Adesope is one of our Staff writers.
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