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flawed. He notes that between 2006 and 2014, there were more frequent deaths resulting from violence among Islamic groups in Nigeria than between Christians and Muslims, and that this is an underrepresented dimension of conflicts in Nigeria (Olojo, 2014). I agree with John Campbell (2011) that both Islam and Christianity in Nigerian have a militant disposition and that the political and religious status quo of northern Nigeria is being destabilized by Christianity’s expansion in the region in recent years (Campbell, 2011: xiv).
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gradually became the foundation of national consciousness. This made it possible for speakers of different, and sometimes mutually incomprehensible, language variations to understand each other on print. It also created an awareness of the existence of millions of other fellow readers in their language circles, connected via print, and thus, planting the seed of the imagined national community (Anderson, 2006). Relations of power and status among languages were also created through print as the closer a vernacular or language was to print-languages, the more dominant it became, and the more capable of assimilating others (Anderson, 2006).
John E. Joseph, in Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious (2004), examines further how group identities interact with the roles of language. He argues that identity, especially when conceptualized in terms of meaning or signifiers and the respective associated meaning, is a linguistic phenomenon (Joseph, 2004). Contact with others is often primarily linguistic – over the internet, phone, letters, as book characters - and such interactions allow people to size up and feel that they know each other better than would be the case if they only had visual contact.
Joseph (2004) adds identity to the traditional functions of language – communication and representation – as a major and distinct function, but also as fundamental to them. Thus, one’s representation of the world and one’s interpretation of text and verbal expressions is organized around and shaped by one’s perception of the identity of the persons involved. Joseph (2004) sees language as both culturally loaded and neutral. It is loaded because the manner of usage creates the user’s cultural identity. However, a language is culturally neutral in its ability to sustain more than a single culture at once. For instance, the Arabic language has sustained Christian cultures despite its strong bond to Islam. For Joseph (2004), language is not necessarily a vehicle for cultural spread and acquisition in that when a language developed within a specific culture is taken to a different habitus, it moulds itself to the new environment as opposed to the new culture changing its form to fit the original culture of the language. Joseph (2004) seems to imagine language as fluid and culture as static in such an encounter. He is unable to demonstrate that in fact language does not carry any element of culture, or that aspects of culture do not shift to accommodate the categories of meaning in a new language especially when the language is associated with power or dominance, and whether such interaction produces a third space or culture, rather than migrated language simply adjusting to its new culture. His work is insightful on the role of language in the formation and maintenance of identity. And as Gumperz and
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Cook-Gumperz (1982) emphasize, language is also crucial in the communication of identity, which is a historical process.
Unlike Joseph, Harry Garuba (2001) argues that despite being spurious, ethno-linguistic identities are powerful instruments in the foreclosing of several other identities. Colonialism, and the collusion of missionaries and local politicians, according to Garuba (2001), saw mutually incomprehensible languages in Nigeria being declared “dialects of a common tongue” (Garuba, 2001:7), thereby imposing ethnolinguistic national identities, and suppressing identities based on actually spoken specific languages. Hence, the emergence of the judicial and constitutional demarcation of Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo as major languages, and hundreds of others as minorities. This also directly translates into political and socioeconomic power distribution and status, and, according to Aito (2005) literacy and educational status. Power and socio-political status could be measured by belonging to majority or minority ethnic groups. Thus, national identities in Nigeria emerged out of political power contests, mobilization and contests for resources, as more authentic and self-generated identities and their symbolic values were dispelled. The maintenance of this state of affairs at the national level extinguished local peculiarities of “speech and dialect”, discouraged and represented them as “examples of uncultured and uneducated speech habits” (Garuba, 2001:16). Thus, Garuba (2001) notes that in northern Nigeria, because of the power and status of the Hausa language, it is expected that other minorities adopt it and express themselves in it (Garuba, 2001). Garuba (2001) concludes that these arrangements have become internalized and politicized to the extent that they lead to conflicts and frustrate the emergence and thriving of multiple identities and pluralism.
Nonetheless, Lergo (2011) insists that ethno-linguistic identities in Nigeria have rigid boundaries. He views ethnicity in Nigeria as a closed system of classification similar to the Indian caste system; and disagrees with conceptualizations of ethno-linguistic identities as fluid and changing in traditional societies such as Nigeria where the highly exclusive nature of ethnicity is one of its most powerful assets. Lergo (2011) argues that irrespective of the length of time they coexisted and interacted, groups and cultures in Nigeria remain exclusive and closed to outsiders, whether such outsiders speak their language or not. Thus, mother tongue and ancestry are the fundamental basis of ethnicity, such that even when people no longer speak a mother tongue, they hold firmly to their ethnic origins. Lergo (2011) points out that a Nigerian may
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speak the language of a group other than theirs but would see themselves as outsiders even if it is the only language they speak; and they would identify with their own ethnic group even if they do not speak the language.
The tendencies highlighted by both Garuba (2001) and Lergo (2011) are played out and contested in the everyday lives of Nigerians, and they have material impact. Thus, against popular narratives, opinions, myths, and contestations surrounding language policies, especially the Hausa language in northern Nigeria, John Edward Philips (2004) examines the history of the Hausa language in the region in relation to power and administration. Phillips (2004) challenges the popular assumptions that Hausa language fluency and literacy as a civil service requirement in northern Nigeria was imposed by Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto during his time as premier of the region (1954-1966) in his bid to force the language and culture on minorities.
Philips also opposed the belief among some Muslims that the colonial romanization of the Hausa language, previously written in Arabic script, was a conspiracy with missionaries to “undermine Islamic civilization and ultimately destroy Islam” (2004:55-56). Philips (2004) also illustrates how Lord Lugard exploited existing tensions/rift between the Sokoto Caliphate and the hundreds of northern ethnic minorities who, he realized, already spoke Hausa language due to a long history of interaction. He united these minorities and recruited soldiers from among them to use in conquering the caliphate. Missionaries also exploited the dislike of Islam among these groups to gain converts (Philips, 2004). But more importantly, colonial authorities and missionaries did not promote or teach English in the north, rather they saw Hausa – the Caliphate’s language – as the “language of conquest, of military and administration” (Philips, 2004: 59). Lugard, following the conquest of the north, made Standard Hausa language tests a requirement for working with the state and for promotions. The language was further imposed as the lingua franca even in parts of the north where it was not previously used. The Caliphate had used Arabic as language of law and administration while Hausa was considered the language of poetry. The colonial authorities and missionaries developed roman vocabulary and alphabets to translate everything into Hausa.
Many of the thousands of Quranic pupils and scholars were reeducated in the Romanized Hausa language in order to learn boko (western education) (Philips, 2004). Although the language policy of northern Nigeria diversified after independence, Hausa remained an official language.
The media used Hausa and a few other languages. The emirate courts kept records in Hausa, Arabic and sometimes English (Philips, 2004). While English and the three National languages
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were recognized and used for business in the National assembly, states had the autonomy to determine their language policy. Thus, Phillips (2004) suggests that while colonial policy helped spread Hausa as first language among people who only previously used it as lingua franca, state creation and other post-independence developments could not stop the spread of the language both as lingua franca and first language. Pidgin English, which emerged among minorities, as well as the three major languages continue to be widely learned and used by Nigerians, irrespective of the country’s or states’ language policy. According to the Church historian Musa Gaiya (1993), missionaries also used the Hausa language to spread the Christian faith, translating scripture and liturgy into Hausa. Thus, the language also emerged as a language of worship.
Phillips and Gaiya are important works that provide scholarly basis for critique of popular opinions about the emergence and role of Hausa language in Nigeria’s social and religious life.
As my data indicates, this is a significant issue for Southern Kaduna as they engage in conversations about norms and naming in Kaduna in relation to cultural recovery, theology and identity.