Yorùbás,
Our beautiful language is disappearing:
I decided to use numbers so you can see for yourself.
My findings from a mini-research (not perfect) carried out with 214 responses:
1. 77.6% are from the south-west.
2. 40.7% live in Lagos, 7.5% live in Oyo while 5.1 live in Ogun state
3. 46.7% speaks 2 languages, 15% speak 3 languages, 11.2% speak 1 language
4. 43.9% CAN'T write fluently in their local language (revisit number 1 to see the impact).
5. 62% communicate in English with their friends while 24.3% in their tongue
6. 62.9% of 70 responses say their children speak their local language while 37.1% say their children don’t (Most of the reasons were too young to understand, I don’t speak to them)
7. From 214 responses: 55.6% did not know that languages are no longer compulsory while writing WAEC.
8. 84:5% are People between the ages of 21-40 (the problem with this for me is that they are raising kids at the moment who in the next 20 years would not have any idea of the language).
Insights:
1. Don't forget that the famous Latin is now extinct.
2. The best way a language is preserved is by using it as a mode of education.
3. The lingua Franca of the northern part of Nigeria is Hausa but look at the Southwest.