Languages of Nigeria

There are over 520 native languages spoken in Nigeria. The two official languages are English (which was the language of Colonial Nigeria) and French (since 1996). The English-based creole Nigerian Pidgin – first used by the British and African slavers to facilitate the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th century – is the most common lingua franca, spoken by over 60 million people.

The most commonly spoken native languages are Hausa (over 63 million when including second-language, or L2, speakers), Yoruba (over 47 million, including L2 speakers), Igbo (over 33 million, including L2 speakers), Ibibio (over 10 million, including L2 speakers), Ijaw cluster (over 5 million), Fulfulde (18 million), Kanuri (7.6 million), Tiv (5 million), and approximately 2 to 3 million each of Nupe, Gbagyi, Edo, Igala, Urhobo, Idoma and Efik. Nigeria's linguistic diversity is a microcosm of much of Africa as a whole, and the country contains languages from the three major purported African language families: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo. Nigeria also has several as-yet unclassified languages, such as Centúúm, which may represent a relic of an even greater diversity before the spread of the current language families.