The Languages in Nigerian Socio-political Domains: Features and Functions

This paper views Nigeria as a multilingual country with diverse languages and cultures to the extent that the total number of languages spoken right now in Nigeria is about 500 (See Adegbite 2010). This linguistic diversity in the country has occasioned the development and the spread of the concepts of bilingualism, multilingualism, diglossia and language choice. As a result of this diversity, it is noticed that the phenomenon of Language Choice has become inevitable on the language use habit of Nigerians as every domain of language use has its language features. This is because both the indigenous (major and minor) and foreign languages have distinct domains of usage. However, despite the multilingual nature of the languages in the country, English Language is the dominant language in almost all the domains, and specifically, it is used for all government functions. This is mainly due to historical, multi-ethnic and cultural nature of the country.