Language Endangerment in Nigeria. The Case of Yoruba

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, University of Würzburg (Anglistik), course: Language Contact, language: English, abstract: Language diversity is a cultural heritage of the world. Even though approximately 6,000 languages still exist, many minority languages are threatened with extinction in almost every part of the world. The study focuses on language endangerment in Nigeria presented by the example of Yoruba. The aim of this paper is to present the topic of language endangerment in general concerning the historical background, the classification, the value of languages, and the causes as well as the supports for language endangerment. It is discussed whether Yoruba counts into the category of endangered languages or not.