Language

1
Language identity Nigerian video-films and
diasporic communities

• Françoise Ugochukwu
• Open University UK
• CNRS-LLACAN, Paris

2
This paper, based on two sets of questionnaires
and interviews dated 2009 and 2011, seeks to
evaluate the linguistic impact of Nigerian video
films among diasporic communities in the UK in
the context of recently expressed fears
concerning the future of Nigerian languages
abroad, and the reasons behind the success of
these films among resettled Nigerians, focusing
on Igbo and Yoruba speakers. It investigates the
potential importance of language on viewers
motivations and practices, the role played by the
cultural message of the language in
identity-reinforcement within the Nigerian
community, and the impact of these video films on
the revival of language and cultural practices
among resettled communities.
3
A growing Diaspora Today, 54 of Nigerian
migrants live in the USA, with prominent
communities in Houston, Texas (the largest
Nigerian community in the States), Atlanta
and Washington, D.C., but a significant 10 are
found in the United Kingdom. The Nigerian
Diaspora in Britain, built over centuries,
facilitated by a tradition of scholarly migration
and mostly made up of Igbo and Yoruba highly
skilled professionals representing 36 of the
work force, is probably the largest in Europe.
The latest estimate from the British Foreign
Commonwealth Office gives the figures of 800,000
to 3,000,000 Nigerians living in the UK. .
4
Nigerian immigrants usually settle first in
London on arrival, attracted and retained by the
presence of long-established structures support
and community centres, specialised markets/shops
and friendly churches, and tend to stay there,
sometimes permanently, fearing the loss of such a
vital support network. This explains that most
Nigerians live in and around London and the
South-East, although they are equally found in
other big cities across England and in the two
major Scottish cities, with pockets of Nigerian
immigrants doted across the whole Britain.
5
Those who migrated as children tend to live in
the UK and visit home occasionally. Some children
born and raised in the UK Diaspora have never
been to Nigeria and a few Nigerians may never
move back if they have lost connection with
relatives in Nigeria or if they cannot afford
to go home (Hernandez 2007 10).
6
Endangered languages? Hausa and Yoruba
languages, whose communities are spread across
Nigerias borders, and which benefited from both
an early written tradition and strong resilience,
seemed to be better placed to resist attrition.
Yet all Nigerian languages, after being
threatened for more than a century by the high
premium placed on English on their own soil, are
now slowly eroded among diasporic communities.
7
one of my 2011 respondents justified his lack of
interest for his first/Nigerian language by
insisting on the need he felt to focus on
learning the culture of his host country. The
fact that a lot of British Nigerians have long
remained abroad has worsened the situation.
According to the UNESCO report on endangered
indigenous languages, the Igbo language faces
risk of possible extinction in the next 50 years
if nothing is done to revive the language (2010
85).
8

• Odinye (2010 90-91) proposes a list of remedies
  to arrest the decline of Igbo language
•  
• Love Igbo language and culture
• Have interest in saving Igbo language.
• Speak Igbo language at all times.
• Encourage the younger generation to learn Igbo
  language
• Provide scholarships for students and teachers
  of Igbo Language.
• Use Igbo language in media radio, television
  and newspapers.

9

• Make Igbo language a compulsory subject for
  admission into higher institution in Igboland
• Pass a bill to encourage the use of Igbo
  language in government of Igboland.
• Encourage the reading of Igbo written materials
  at churches, schools, homes, etc.
• Discourage people especially the younger
  generation from speaking English and other
  languages.
• Other prominent Igbo men and women have joined
  this crusade. Prof Anya. O. Anya commented Igbo
  language is our identity. When we lose it, we
  lose our identity. We must all be disciples of
  Igbo language to save the threat that may befall
  us.

10
An article on Igbo language and the extinction
theory, dated April 29, 2010 in The Nigerian
Compass, brings in an interesting statement
Igbo language cannot be extinct because of
the role of the entertainment industry. The
Nollywood's influence in language development
cannot be overemphasised due to its
pervasiveness. Hardly is there any home that does
not watch home video. Producers and marketers
push into circulation produced videos almost
every week. Some of these home videos are
produced in Igbo language. Many families now
create time to sit together to watch home videos.
Non-Igbo have even learnt the language via the
movies.
11
Nigerian movies and the language issue Research
carried out between January and March this year
shows that diasporic Nigerians spend a
significant portion of their leisure time
together with other Nigerians or other Africans,
viewing Nigerian video films, massively preferred
to foreign films. Yet 47.7 of the respondents
prefer watching Nigerian films in English, more
easily available than those in Nigerian languages
and easier to follow for those struggling to
understand their parents language.
12
In spite of this preference for English
language, 58.7 of them considered that Nigerian
languages played a role in the pleasure they
derived from viewing films, and value speaking
their first language together they clearly
perceived those languages as part of their
cultural heritage and identity (59), a legacy to
be cherished and protected especially in
diasporic situations, which confirms Adegbijas
remark that most Nigerians feel very loyal to
their mother tongues, love them and see them as
ethnic and cultural identification tags (2004
127).
13
Respondents equally considered their Nigerian
language as a vital tool to communicate with
older relatives in Nigeria and keep in touch with
ones roots, and this marked interest for
language also reveals the premium placed on
communication among long-term migrants,
especially for the 62 who still occasionally
visit Nigeria most of them (87.2) staying more
than a week at a time. One of them says it
beautifully It makes me feel more at home once
I speak my language. Language is equally valued
for its confidence-boosting and
identity-reinforcing value, and features
prominently in the list of what attracts viewers
to Nollywood.
14
While 68.7 of respondents were in the 18-40
years bracket, it is relevant to note that 35.3
of the sample were born outside Nigeria and only
occasionally inherited a Nigerian language from
their parents. Some of these still refer to
Nigeria, which they might only know as family
holiday destination, as home a word used by
both those aged 40-50 and younger ones in the two
surveys. Among those born in Nigeria and who now
live in the UK, those films are a reminder of
when I used to live there. They also remind me of
part of my heritage. I also enjoy watching the
films with others as a bonding exercise.  
15
  For all respondents with Nigerian family
connections, video films are the occasion to
discover Nigerian cultures or reconnect with
them, and their viewing offer the occasion of
endless family discussions on customs, practicing
their first language freely they also watch some
films on their own, enjoying the songs and the
entertainment. On the issue of language,
questionnaires reveal a rapid decline in language
skills among second generation immigrants this
is even more visible among Nigerians who were
born abroad and subsequently relocated to another
European country.
16
  For those born outside Nigeria, this broad life
interest in home culture has the potential to
become a motivator to meet other people from
their culture area and perfect language skills.
It has been argued that Nigerian films are
primarily meant for a Nigerian market, an opinion
corroborated by responses indicating that
Nigerians usually watch these films at home with
family (67.4) and other compatriots (37.2) who
do not need any explanation to enjoy the viewing.
Gathering with Nigerians of other ethnic cultures
is then facilitated by the use of Nigerian
English, seen as a unifying force in
multicultural Nigeria (Adegbija 2004 126).
17
  Whatever the viewers nationality, Nigerian
films, produced as a collective expression
(Austen Saul 20107), are best watched in group
and commented in-between scenes, bringing about a
wider, shared African identity. The importance of
culture in attracting Nigerians to Nollywood
should not be underestimated, because, by their
own admission, it helps them cope with exile.
Viewing Nigerian films with family and friends
can be considered as a way of building an
immigrant community within the host society, and
fostering a group identity while gathering
strength from the group to resist acculturation.
18
  This impact of Nollywood is made more potent by
the pervasive view, among 87 of the Nigerian
respondents, that these films represent more or
less accurately the Nigerian society past and
present. They have the ability to transport
viewers to Nigeria and allow them to experience
living there by proxy and sharing peoples daily
life. Viewing Nigerian movies can therefore be
seen and experienced as a trip down memory lane,
a virtual trip back home, a ritual experience
(Dipio 2008 60) and a group therapy.
19
  The unifying role of Nigerian English The
viewing of Nigerian films can finally be seen as
a virtual classroom experience a number of 2009
respondents insisted on the educational value of
the films, saying that they have a moral tale to
tell, and in the end, all viewers agreed that
Nigerian video films had a lot to teach
culture, language and morality.
20
 The Facebook page of http//omenigbo.com (do it
in Igbo) explains the aims of their site
language as a root of our identity may be
regarded as the most important cultural identity
marker in any cultural heritage. The primary
purpose here is to promote and discuss
Igbo-language movies as well as other Igbo
movies. The group, lamenting the fact that
nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear an Igbo
person living in Nigeria claiming that he or she
is not proficient in the language or does not
even speak it, further describes their
enterprise as an investigation into reasons
behind the dearth of movies in Igbo.
21
Their aim is to boost the language, the most
vital heritage of any society, since certainly,
the medium of film is one of the avenues whereby
language can be revitalized and Igbo language can
be maintained through the medium of Igbo-language
film. 
The strong emphasis placed by respondents on
moral values and the didactic component of films
again a distinct Nigerian trait is further
indicative of a desire to hand down those values
and languages to the next generation and ensure
the survival of the culture among Nigerians in
Diaspora.
22
 In normal circumstances, at home, culture would
have been imbibed effortlessly from the
environment. In the UK, films are now used
instead, as one of the main cultural tools -
someone called them baby-sitters because
parents frequently leave their children watching
them while they attend to domestic chores. On the
whole, research shows that, although most
respondents acknowledged the important role of
language in identity building and reinforcement,
very few of them sought to watch films in Igbo or
Yoruba, and that songs, usually rendered in those
languages even in English-speaking films, did not
catch the attention of the majority.
23
 It would be interesting to investigate the
potential role of these films as incentives to
actively seek to learn Nigerian languages through
other means such as evening classes/ E-books and
online software developed to help learners of
major Nigerian languages. In the end, while
languages may commit suicide, it may be
impossible to eradicate a language which its
speakers truly wish to retain (Edwards 2009
62), and this leaves diasporic Igbo and Yoruba
speakers with a clear choice. For Anyanwu (2009),
a people without language are a people without
voice. A people without language are a people
without identity for it is language that
identifies us as Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa.
24
Interestingly, Edwards questions this centrality
of language in the building of group identity,
offering a strikingly different illustration of
cultural identity as he quotes Koestler (1976) on
the Jewish example first they spoke Hebrew in
the Babylonian exile, Chaldean at the time of
Jesus, Aramaic in Alexandria, Greek in Spain,
Arabic, but later Ladino . They preserved
their religious identity, but changed languages
at their convenience (Edwards 2009 205). Would
this work for diasporic Nigerians as their ethnic
languages disappear through intercultural
marriages and the resulting multiplicity of
languages? The following posting from an Igbo
lady born in Britain seems to prove it
25
 I'm an Igbo Nigerian born and raised in
London and more and more I feel as though I am an
alien. I'm not Nigerian enough for Nigerians and
other Africans and I'm not English enough for the
English! People make wise cracks that I'm
English, as though being born here makes the fact
that my parents, grand-parents, relatives and DNA
are routed in Nigeria irrelevant. My parents
spoke to me in English so I only understand
certain Igbo words and phrases . Many
Nigerians do see me as Nigerian though they
always underestimate my knowledge of and interest
in my culture, the politics of Nigeria,
Chimamanda Adichie/Chinua Achebe , Nollywood
. Can anyone else relate? (2010)
26
In conclusion Current research shows that in the
UK, the language most viewers relate to, while
watching Nigerian films, is Nigerian English, a
variety of English that identifies them as
Nigerians and which, should they feel free to
give it the ethnic flavour they would have used
at home, might even identify them as Igbo or
Yoruba. Reverting to Nigerian English triggers an
empowerment, a claiming of a portion of British
space as Nigerian space and bearing their souls,
using words, code-mixing and code-switching,
accents, intonation and body language usually
muted gathering round the TV set, they join in
recreating home away from home.
27
Omoniyi (2010 239) questioned whether or not
English or African Englishes are sufficiently
indigenous, and to what extent they can mark
national identity. To bilingual or multilingual
Nigerians abroad, who may not be able to meet
fellow Yoruba or Igbo people but now enjoy
watching films in the company of Nigerians from
other ethnic groups, Nigerian English definitely
serves its original purpose, that of bringing
Nigerians together and supporting an embryo of
national identity which, in Adegbijas words,
should be thought of as a production, which is
never complete, always in process (2007
111).