Nnadiebube Journal of Education

The belly button of every society is language. Apart from being a means of communication, it is the vehicle that grants one access to the world of the people: their worldviews, cultures, and beliefs. Every society’s presence in human society is sustained by its language. This reveals the overwhelming relevance of language to every society. Unfortunately, with the world having become a global village, uniting people across borders, indigenous languages are lost, particularly African indigenous languages, often considered not so fit to ring out from the global table. This leads to reliance and emphasis on global languages like English and French as a valid medium of communication, relegating indigenous languages to the background. It is in light of this that this study sheds light on the Igbo language of the indigenous Igbo of southeastern Nigeria, which seems to be gradually easing into extinction, as it is increasingly supplanted by powerful global languages. Hence, this paper raises the pertinent question: How do we save the soul of the Igbo language in an increasingly globalised world? To answer the question, the paper adopts a critical analytical method, while relying on secondary sources such as books, online journal articles and the internet. The study is significant in that it joins the already existing conversations on the possible effective means of saving the Igbo language and also brings new insight into the discourse.

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