By
Obododimma Oha
English was the language which was used by Europeans that colonised Nigeria. In other words, English came into Nigeria through colonization. This places the language of the colonizer above local ones officially. That also that there is natural competition between local languages and English as we would expect in a multilingual context. Competition, in this case, means struggle for supremacy in the specified space. Of course, we would expect competition among local languages prior to colonization. So, on competition, we would have
1. Competition for supremacy among local Nigerian languages;
2. Competition for supremacy between English and local Nigerian languages.
3. Competition between standard English and Nigerian Pidgin
4. Competition between English and Arabic in education especially in northern Nigeria.
5. Other competitions.
The competition between English and local Nigerian languages is understandable. It's not only that the colonizer must appear superior in everything including language, those colonized people who are able to use the colonizer's language also constructed their superiority. Many African writers have narratives on this.
There was also a competition between Latin and Arabic in schools. Religion and education were made to go together. The languages were seen as languages of Islam and Christianity or languages of some religions, which should be preserved. The consequence was that the religious language became a disadvantage of it could not help in the learning of English in any way.
There is a strong competition between standard English and Nigerian Pidgin, especially among students. Nigerian Pidgin is more playful and relaxes rules of grammar. In that case, it's more friendly in the Outer Circle.
Nigerian Pidgin conforms to an orientation to entertainment.
Lecturers in tertiary institutions would insist on the use of standard English in writing, but students would still use Pidgin and slang expressions outside the classroom, which creates an impression that there is a kind of diglossia in the use of English there. There is no such diglossia!
English emerged as the language of power. Colonized people had to see its skills as ensuring upward mobility and employment. Even some local people who didn't go to school saw English as being synonymous with being educated. At school, the use of English in communication was made compulsory by some teachers. Students who spoke local languages were penalised.
However, some languages have to work together or collaborate. A notable case is that of Chinua Achebe who made English clearly blend with Igbo and collaborate with English in presenting local Igbo situations. Local Igbo expressions and proverbs are used in his fictional literary works in a very refreshing way that one would think that they are natural. Obviously, he is looking for a way that his characters could say what they want to say in English in their Outer Circle and through speech register their social identity.
Some ways that this collaboration can occur are:
1. Code mixing, which involves combining expressions from two or more languages in the same discourse, with the presupposition that the addressee does not mind and understands the languages. It could even be a way of hiding low competence in a language. It may also be to show off and pretend to know a language.
2. Accommodating the meaning of some expressions, through a given translation method.
It is natural that languages compete or collaborate. Actually, in relating of a language and another, we should expect influences. One could borrow expressions from another one.
That a language competes with another is actually users struggling for dominance. The same for collaboration, but in the latter case, two groups want to work together. However, it is one of the groups and its language that become dominant.
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