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There are over 520 native languages spoken in Nigeria. [1] [2] [3] The official language is English, [4] [5] which was the language of Colonial Nigeria.The English-based creole Nigerian Pidgin – first used by the British and African slavers to facilitate the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th century [6] – is the most common lingua franca, spoken by over 60 million people.
The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ibibio, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri , spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State , is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language.
Nigeria has one official language which is English, as a result of the British colonial rule over the nation. Nevertheless, it is not spoken as a first language in the entire country because other languages have been around for over a thousand years making them the major languages in terms of numbers of native speakers.
1996 map of the major ethnolinguistic groups of Africa, by the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division (substantially based on G.P. Murdock, Africa, its peoples and their cultural history, 1959). Colour-coded are 15 major ethnolinguistic super-groups, as follows: Afroasiatic
The language they speak is called the Edo language. The Bini people are closely related to several other ethnic groups, that usually speak Edo languages, for example the Esan, however it is important to address the fact that the name "Benin" (and "Bini") is a Portuguese corruption, which came from the word "Ubinu", which came into use during ...
Several studies have shown the Edo language is the major African component that constitutes the foundation of the creoles of the Gulf of Guinea.
Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. [22] The name Nigeria was derived from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British journalist Flora Shaw , who later married Baron Frederick Lugard , a British colonial administrator ...
Nigeria might then be the 3rd most populous country in the world. In 2100, the population of Nigeria may reach 541 million. [ 31 ] While the overall population is expected to increase, the growth rate is estimated to decrease from 1.2 per cent per year in 2010 to 0.4 per cent per year in 2050. [ 30 ]