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There are over 520 native languages spoken in Nigeria. [1] [2] [3] The official language is English, [4] [5] which was the language of Colonial Nigeria.The English-based creole Nigerian Pidgin – first used by the British and African slavers to facilitate the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th century [6] – is the most common lingua franca, spoken by over 60 million people.
Nigeria has one official language which is English, as a result of the British colonial rule over the nation. Nevertheless, it is not spoken as a first language in the entire country because other languages have been around for over a thousand years making them the major languages in terms of numbers of native speakers.
Nigerian English, also known as Nigerian Standard English, is a variety of English spoken in Nigeria. [1] Based on British and American English, the dialect contains various loanwords and collocations from the native languages of Nigeria, due to the need to express concepts specific to the cultures of ethnic groups in the nation (e.g. senior wife).
As of 2024, there are 57 sovereign states and 28 non-sovereign entities where English is an official language. Many administrative divisions have declared English an official language at the local or regional level. Most states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire.
In Nigeria, English is acquired through formal education. [16] As English has been in contact with multiple different languages in Nigeria, Nigerian English has become much more prominent and is very similar to both American and British English, and it is often referred to as a group of different sub-varieties. [16]
The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960. Nigerian Pidgin English , first used by British and African slavers to facilitate the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th century, [ 243 ] has replaced the ...
West African Pidgin English arose during the period of the transatlantic slave trade as a language of commerce between British and African slave traders. Portuguese merchants were the first Europeans to trade in West Africa beginning in the 15th century, and West African Pidgin English contains numerous words of Portuguese origin such as sabi ('to know'), a derivation of the Portuguese saber. [3]
The British spread Christianity throughout southern Nigeria and Christian missionaries assisted British authorities in establishing a Western-style education system in Nigeria that resulted in the teaching of English language in Nigeria and its subsequent adoption as Nigeria's main language. [29]