60 - Mask. Nigeria, 20th century.

Mask. Nigeria, 20th century. Wood. Measurements: 48 x 22 x 14 cm. There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria (nine of which are now extinct). In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. Nigeria’s official language, English, was chosen to facilitate the country’s cultural and linguistic unity, due to the influence of British colonization, which ended in 1960.Many French speakers from neighboring countries have influenced the English spoken in Nigeria’s border regions, and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in neighboring countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages, but it is primarily spoken in the same way as the French spoken in Benin. French may also be mixed with English, as is the case in Cameroon. The majority of the population speaks English as their native language. The main languages spoken in Nigeria represent the three major language families of Africa: most are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, and Fulfulde; Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, mainly in Borno and Yobe states, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family; and Hausa is an Afro-Asiatic language. Although most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English, as the official language, is widely used for education, business transactions, and official purposes. English as a first language is used only by a small minority of the country’s urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three major languages spoken in Nigeria (Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba), but unlike the Yoruba and Igbo, the Hausa people do not typically travel very far from Nigeria. [Citation needed] With the majority of Nigeria’s population living in rural areas, the primary languages of communication in the country remain the indigenous languages. Some of the largest, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have developed standardized languages from various different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian English Pidgin, often known simply as “Pidgin” or “Broken” (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though it features various regional influences in dialect and slang. Nigerian Pidgin English is widely spoken in the Niger Delta region, predominantly in Warri, Sapele, Port Harcourt, Agenebode, Ewu, and Benin City.