Promoting and preserving the Ogbia language through social media

This paper is tailored towards the broad concept of language activism through the use of social media. It aims to promote, preserve and document the Ogbia language on social media which has become a viable tool for communication. The Ogbia language by all linguistic standards is endangered, as its present status is far from vigorous use by its speakers. The language, from a linguistic point of view, is poorly described and undocumented. It is not taught in schools, not used in churches and above all it is poorly transmitted to the younger generation. As a means of promoting and preserving the language, the researcher takes advantage of the viability of social media to reach out to speakers of Ogbia on Facebook, by setting up a Facebook page strictly for Ogbia speakers. The target population is speakers between the ages of 18 to 55 years. A major rule of engagement on the page is for speakers to respond strictly in Ogbia as posts are made in Ogbia with English translations. However, young speakers tend to engage the page more in English and sparingly use few words in Ogbia. This is a clear indication of the poor use of the language among speakers from Ogbia and especially those on Facebook. Some of these engagements are presented in this paper as screen shots. The responses on the page have shown that social media is a viable source for promoting, preserving and documenting languages especially those classified as endangered.