Making a Virtue of Necessity

The author is a prominent linguistics scholar. The study of sociolinguistics of the English language in Nigeria has assumed great importance in Nigerian universities. Against the background of key works from 1971 to 1991, and the growing debate over an optimal language policy for Nigeria, he looks at the perspectives of an individual writer, to provide an overview of the language since its earliest contacts with what is now known as Nigeria. One important gap which he identifies is the paucity of illustrative data even from the three main Nigerian languages.