EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Abstract

Language will likely grow or atrophy whether in its natural environment or in conflict with a foreign culture. English language is no exception to this phenomenon. Development or death of a language is a factor of its contact with, or non-absorption of other cultural values into its linguistic paradigms. It also derives from systematic planning and modernisation. Language flourishes through dissemination by native speakers of the developing language. Essentially, perfecting a language, aims at making it responsive to the needs of contemporary literary, scientific, technological enquires and, other areas of human endeavours.  In the process of its development, English language borrows mainly from Anglo-Saxon, French, German and Latin languages. Extinction of a language may bot be conceived in absolute terms. Although Latin language is no longer associable with demographically significant linguistic community in native Italy or elsewhere, it still provides key terminology for the study of law, medicine, experimental sciences and other disciplines. In Nigeria, for obvious reasons, English language tended to evolve independently of Nigeria’s multiplicity of indigenous languages. In the circumstance, the growth of English language in Nigeria is a classic process of imposition of foreign linguo-cultural values on indigenous cultures. It is informative to examine the extent of development and the impact of English language in Nigeria.