Language and identity: Hausa language of youth generation in Northern Nigeria (original) (raw)
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Language and identity: Hausa language of youth gen- eration in Northern Nigeria 1
Wannan maqala ta yi nazari a kan karin harshen matasa a Arewacin Nijeriya tare da bayanin matakai da hanyoyin da suke bi wajen qirqirar sababbin kalmomi. Sa'an nan maqalar ta nuna yadda hakan ya samar wa da matasan wani rukuni na musamman da ba su damar gudar da ma'amala da harshe ba tare da wani ya gane abin da suke nufi ba sai 'yan wannan rukuni da kuma wadanda suke ma'amala da su. Haka kuma an kawo misalan yadda matasan suke amfani da kalmomin a cikin jimila.
Investigating language use, shift and change across generations in Nigeria: The case of Ijáw
2019
This sociolinguistic study examines the life stories of a selected group of Nigerians spanning four generations. Their socio-economic backgrounds are varied, but they share the bond of the Ijaw language, which is key to their ethnic identity, Izon. The thesis investigates why the Ijaw language appears to be in decline and examines the way language use has changed across generations and why the language is apparently not being passed down from one generation to the next. In addition, it highlights the participants’ own perspectives on this decline and their efforts to reverse it. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative approach by examining the life stories of the participants as recorded during interviews via the application of thematic analysis exploring the participants’ experiences, beliefs, emotions, attitudes and practices pertaining to Ijaw. The data reveal several themes, including the emotional attachment of love and pride versus the sense of loss in terms of the la...
Linguistic Strategies of Adaptation: Hausa in Southern Nigeria
Studies of the Department of African Languages and Cultures 39, 2006
This paper presents the results of investigation on Hausa spoken in two cities of southern Nigeria, Ilorin and Ibadan, in which there are large Hausa communities and the Hausa language is widely used in communication. These cities are originally inhabited by Yoruba people. The linguistic analysis is supported by history of Hausa settlement in these areas which led to the establishment of Hausa neighborhoods or camps in these cities. The analysis focuses more on the changes that the language is facing as a result of new conditions of social interaction. The two patterns of linguistic behavior which reflect two different strategies of social functioning within multinational and multilingual community have been distinguished: co-existence in a multilingual society (as in the case of Hausa in Ilorin) and exclusiveness (Hausa in Ibadan). Language choice and language patterns are illustration of the ties that exist between the members of multilingual societies and determine their participation in the development of the city.
A Tale of Many Tongues: Towards Conceptualising Nigerian Youth Languages
Language Matters, 2020
The Nigerian youth language phenomenon has often been labelled, albeit reductively, as Pidgin or Pidgin-based-to the exclusion of other varieties which co-constitute the ecology of youth argots in the country. Drawing on the notion of indexicality, this article presents a range of Pidgin and non-Pidgin exemplars and illuminates their linguistic as well as discursive strategies. Though ostensibly diverse and sphere-specific, they consist of syntax drawn from the informal varieties of existing languages and the insertion of mainly lexical features, including slang, neologism, borrowing, relexicalisation, and metaphorisation. Rather than labelling them, this article defines them as a cluster of linguistic (and paralinguistic) practices with indexical links to youthfulness, conviviality, in-groupness, camaraderie, etc., and draws attention to the changing demographics of their user communities.
Language endangerment or loss? The case of Hyam1 of North Central Nigeria
1 Hyam is spoken by the Ham, but they are often referred to by a sobriquet Jaba in most literatures. How the people came to be termed Jaba remains ambiguous, however Ham and Hyam are the designations by which the people in their idiom describe themselves and their language. Hyam is spoken in the area of the famous Nok culture in north central Nigeria where the people have dense population in Jaba and Kachia, with sparse settlements in Kagarko and Jema'a, local government areas, all in Kaduna state. Apart from those drifted to the city, there are a couple of villages in today's neighbouring state of Nassarawa where Hyam speakers are said to have settled there from the 1940s.
GLOBAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED, MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2015
There is always a positive and negative tendency in every growth. As a writer once said, the growth of water is at the expense of fire and vice versa. The more complex a society becomes, the more socially and technologically advanced it gets and the more communication problems it is confronted inescapably with. It is no longer a story that the language of the Igbo nation is rapidly tilting towards extinction. An average Igbo family prefers borrowed languages to its own Igbo language. It is not a story to hear that it is becoming a taboo to hear Igbo language in many Igbo families. This study x-rays language as an agent of societal transformation, using the Igbo language as a case study.The introductory section, the definition of bilingualism and some of the causes of underutilization of Igbo language are also carefully examined.
The language factor in the politics of ethnic identity among the West Niger Igbo of Nigeria
Integrity Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2023
The West Niger Igbo forms one of the six sub-cultural groups of Igboland. The other five sub-groups include: Northern, Southern, Northeastern, or what Afigbo called Ogu-Ukwu, Southeastern or Cross River, and Riverain. In fact substantial parts of West Niger, Northern, and Southern sub-groups constitute the Riverain sub-group. Although all the six sub-groups have cultural interfaces at their borderlands with neighbouring ethnic groups which often generate multi-cultural identity characteristics, yet in most cases Igbo remains the major spoken language. Under such circumstances there has always been the question of identity definition founded on the three ethno-historical variables of origin, culture, and language. And among the six sub-groups there is nowhere this question of identity definition runs higher than among the West Niger Igbo. This question has often been centred on which among the three variables forms the fundamental basis of identity definition. In other words, what defines a man as an Igbo by ethnic classification? In this paper, we have decided to look into this fundamental question of identity definition among the West Niger Igbo in the midst of denials and counter-denials of Igbo identity by some members of the sub-group. It is expected that the work will go a long way in resolving some fundamental aspects of this intractable controversy. In pursuing this objective, the work adopts historical methodology constructed on diachronic approach within the circles of linguistic and ethnographical sources.
Nigerian Languages, Ethnicity and Formal Education
one of the major concerns of African scholars is the wide linguistic and educational gaps that exist among different ethnic groups within the same country. To bridge the gaps between inter-ethnic class and struggle, there is a need to put into consideration, the linguistic and educational set up of the country. overall, this paper examines Nigerian languages, ethnicity and formal educational practices. It contributes to the very large literature on the conformity, formation and the question of identity, culture and language in Nigerian formal education. This work concurrently links linguistic identity to educational choice in Nigeria. The work concludes that ethnicization has become the highest level of threat to national integration thereby causing a lot of wobble in our democracy. one can then deduce that ethnic sentiments spring from man's innate (linguistic) and educational tendency to display allegiance to a particular group. The work suggests a review of the National Policy on education. The study also suggests ways of managing ethnicity and developing educationally and culturally through interaction with government agencies that disseminate policies through various indigenous languages. It also recommends the sustainability of functional education.
Language and Behavioural Patterns of the Hausas, Igbos and Yorubas of Nigeria
2019
This study entitled ‘Language and the behavioural patterns of the Hausas, Ibos, and Yorubas of Nigeria’ is designed to find out whether or not language determines the behaviour of its speakers, using the Hausas, Ibos and Yorubas of Nigeria as a focal point. The theoretical linguistic tool adopted in this study is linguistic determinism championed by Edward Sapir (1884 – 1939) and his follower, Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897 – 1941) in the popular Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. To achieve the objective of this study, linguistic tools such as words, proverbs, idioms and wise-sayings relating to types of food, clothing (wears), politics, education, law and other aspects of the culture of each of the above linguistic communities were randomly collected (through interview) for the purpose of finding out whether any of them can be said to be responsible for any particular behaviour being exhibited by members of the linguistic community. The study unambiguously revealed, among others, that each of the ...