Is Yorùbá an Endangered Language?

Abstract

The phenomenon of language death is real. The phrase ‘language death’ may sound stark and unwelcome, but its grappling muscles on the throat of the Yoruba language have terrible, unannounced and unnoticed suffocating effects. Yoruba is one of the major languages in Nigeria. Does the language face the threat of total extinction in the next two or so decades? The answer is far beyond saying either yes or no. The paper discusses this issue with some illustrational analysis. The paper contends that the largeness of the percentage of the speakers of the language cannot thwart the supplantive moves of language endangerment. The paper then highlights some preventive measures for the Yoruba language to be able to overcome the danger of losing domains in today’s flow of globalisation.