UNESCO extinction prediction: Don calls for protection of indigenous languages

A professor of General Stylistics and Literary Criticism in the department of English, University of Uyo, Prof Joseph Ushie, has tasked individuals and groups to ensure that the prediction of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Nigerian languages does not come to pass.

Recall that towards the end of 2006, UNESCO predicted that some minor languages of the world, including Nigerian languages, will go into extinct in the next 50 years.

But the professor said such prediction can be prevented if individuals and groups undertake research and documentation to preserve, protect and project these indigenous languages which he noted are bearers of ancestral wisdom, history and value systems.

Ushie stated this while delivering the 103rd inaugural lecture of the University titled, “How Really Post Colonial are ‘Post Colonial’ Studies in Nigeria?”, held at the TEFfund Auditorium, UNIUYO main campus, Uyo.

He said, “Individuals and groups must rise to the occasion of preventing their indigenous languages from dying as UNESCO had predicted 10 years ago

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“This can be done through research and documentation to preserve, protect and project these indigenous languages which are bearers of much of our ancestral wisdom, history and value system.”

While commending the efforts of the Ogori League of Professors of Kogi, who are currently working to save their minority Oko tongue from going into extinction, the professor tasked other Nigeria ethno-linguistic groups to emulate the examples of the Ogori professors by developing orthographies and vocabularies for their indigenous languages.

The inaugural lecturer equally called on government to copy the example of Malaysia by supporting the enrichment of these languages through writing in them and translating from other languages into the mother tongue.

According to him, “Government should provide the necessary support that could enhance the enrichment of these languages through writing in them and translating from other languages into the mother tongue. This is what Malaysia did; and it is what the Republic of Ireland is pursuing at the moment most zealously.”

The professor who noted that it would be wishful thinking for Nigerians to imagine that the nation’s indigenous languages can replace English in all situations of language use in the country immediately, however called on government to, as a matter of urgency, incorporate function domains into the nation’s language policy and be committed to its implementation.