Challenges of English in Nigeria
UNIVERSITY OF BENIN, BENIN CITY
FACULTY OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERATURE
ASSIGNMENT ON
“THE CHALLENGES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN NIGERIA”
ENL 806: ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL)
SUBMITTED TO
DR. IGENE
NOVEMBER 2016
INTRODUCTION
English did not come to Nigeria with colonialism; it came before it. Though the exact date was not recorded, historians believe that English was spoken in old Calabar as a result of about 400 years of cultural and trade contact with Europe. In his Christian Missions in Nigeria (1965) Ajayi says that English was the only European language spoken by Calabar traders and that Hope Waddel did find intelligent journals of the affairs of the region in English, as far back as 1767.
Nigeria’s earliest contact with Europe particularly the Portuguese was in the 15th century in places like Warri, Brass and Calabar before the slave trade. Communication between the natives and the Portuguese merchants was initially very difficult. The result was an emergence of a Pidgin English which was a mixture of the indigenous language and the Portuguese dialect of the English language. The new pidgin soon became influential and eventually displaced Portuguese as the language of commerce. Further trade contacts with English traders and sea captains made the Pidgin English the chief coastal trade language of the earliest times. The coming of professional interpreters to Nigeria is another fundamental factor that implanted English in Nigeria. The interpreters or clerks were freed slaves from Monrovia and Freetown. Since they could speak English due to their many years in England, USA and the Caribbean, the abolition of the slave trade in the early 19th century, meant a new life for them. Many of them came to Nigeria to work as clerks in government and interpreters between European traders and the indigenous people. Some Nigerian freed slaves in Freetown also came back to their original homes in Lagos, Badagry and Abeokuta and this meant a stronger influence of English in Nigeria. The abolition of the slave trade in 1807-1808 in Britain and United States forced European slave traders to seek alternative source of trade in the interiors taking the English language further into the rural areas. It was already on record that Mungo Park in 1795 discovered that River Niger flowed eastwards and that trade was possible between the eastern regions and the west. Missionary activities also contributed to the establishing of English in Nigeria. The coming of Rev. Thomas Freeman to Badagry in 1842, Rev. Hope Waddel of the Church of Scotland to Calabar in 1846 and Rev. Samuel Edgerly and others to Duke Town, Calabar in 1854 began the phase of formal acquisition of English in Nigeria. The missionaries established schools and taught their converts in Standard English. The Church Missionary Society (CMS) founded two schools in Badagry and a station in Abeokuta in 1846. The Methodist Church founded the Methodist Boys High School, Lagos in 1876, while Hope Waddel Institute, Calabar was established in 1895. The first Christian mission was also opened in Zaria in 1902. The English Language was taught in these schools. Samuel Edgerly and Townsend opened the first printing press in Nigeria in 1852. Wherever the missionaries went they taught their converts in English, thus English became the language of civilization and Christianity. Christian education is therefore an important medium through which Standard English gained access to the local population in the early 19th century. British interest in Nigeria changed from mere commercial capitalism to outright colonization in 1861 when Lagos was invaded and annexed as a British colony. Subsequent consolidation of the British colonial administration in Nigerian in the years that followed empowered a more organized education and emphasis in the learning of English. In fact government grants to schools then depended largely on the effective learning and teaching of the English Language. People who could write and speak English enjoyed special privileges with regards to jobs and social amenities by the colonial government. English Language became a passport to good living and everyone was invariably forced to learn and spread the language. One would have expected that with the attainment of independence and the casting off of the yoke of imperialism, the language referred to as the language of conquest and oppression would have been abolished. On the contrary, the English language has come to stay as the official language despite the fact that Nigerians have their indigenous languages before the arrival of the white men. The reason for this is not far- fetched considering the roles being performed by the English language.