It is common knowledge that a lot of parents now encourage their children to communicate in English language, at the detriment of local languages. This has become so popular across the country that some academics now fear that Nigerian languages may be heading for extinction.
According to Michael Krauss of the Alaska Native Language Center there are about 200 different North American languages still spoken by the indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada out of the total of over 300 spoken before the arrival of Columbus. These languages have survived suppression in boarding schools and catastrophic population declines.
Africa is the most linguistically diverse continent in the world, according to the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). People speak close to 2,000 different languages which is a third of the world's linguistic heritage.
Let me make some points about language policy. A first step is that Australia must recognise its languages. It is ridiculous that Australia is behind Europe in this respect. The European states have signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
