INDIGENOUS NIGERIAN LANGUAGES AND SUSTAINABLE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE TIV EXAMPLE

This research faults the negligence of Nigerian indigenous languages as depriving Nigerian learners the right to functional type of education that could attract development to them. To demonstrate the resourcefulness of the languages in development, the work studies the contributions of Nigerian indigenous languages, especially Tiv language, to sustainable national development through evaluation of Tiv utterances that are poised to developing traits which can facilitate national development in a sustained manner. Such traits include: value attachment, resource management, unity of purpose, hard-work and good governance. To achieve this purpose, the study explores specific Tiv expressions, including proverbs, wise sayings, and adages that encourage the development of the traits mentioned above as being key to national development. Such expressions are collected from all the five major components of Tiv society through interactive sessions with elderly speakers of the language, after which, the researchers select and translate the relevant ones, as well as analyse them in relation to how they contribute to national development. The study finds out that national development is not a reserve of the social sciences to investigate, but an area that is well considered in the scope of linguistics, through Nigerian indigenous languages, especially Tiv language in pursuance of its attainment.