Nigeria is a country of voices, yet too many of those voices are being silenced in the digital age. While the world races ahead with artificial intelligence, speech recognition, and smart apps, hundreds of Nigerian languages remain invisible online. What we risk losing is not just words, but identity, access, and opportunity.
With over 520 different languages, Nigeria holds the third-highest number of spoken languages in the world. Four of these (Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, and Ijaw) are spoken by about 78 percent of the country’s population (Central Intelligence Agency, 2019). Yet despite this richness, most Nigerian languages remain absent from the tools shaping the lives of Generation Z and Generation Alpha, the generations who embody the future of today.
UNESCO warns that about 40 percent of the world’s 7,000 languages are at risk of extinction by 2025, with African and indigenous tongues disproportionately vulnerable. Nigeria is not immune. Over a hundred Nigerian languages are already considered endangered or close to extinction.
Technology illustrates the urgency. In Natural Language Processing (NLP), which powers translation apps, voice assistants, and speech recognition, Nigerian languages are classified as low-resource. This means there is not enough digital text or audio for artificial intelligence systems to learn from. Without action, entire languages risk being digitally invisible.
The Nigerian government has no structured plan to preserve or expand indigenous languages, especially in technology and research. Most languages lack basic resources such as text datasets, essential for NLP. Minority languages like Ibibio, Ijaw, and Kanuri, spoken by fewer than 10 million people each, have little or no digital representation. Even the so-called big three languages (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) struggle with limited and poor-quality resources.
In contrast, South Africa demonstrates what deliberate policy can achieve. Eleven of its 25 languages have official recognition, and government-backed Human Language Technology projects have built rich corpora that now fuel NLP research. As a result, South African languages enjoy better digital representation and are being woven into everyday tools.
Globally, artificial intelligence is already teaching millions of people languages once considered obscure, such as Navajo or Vietnamese. Apps exist for Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo, but hundreds of Nigerian languages remain excluded. The lesson is clear: with proper investment and documentation, Nigerian languages can thrive digitally, just as small languages elsewhere have.
The potential impact is transformative. Imagine rural communities using their phones to ask questions and receive answers in their native tongue. Patients could describe symptoms in their mother language and have doctors understand them through smart apps. Traders could sell online using indigenous languages, reaching more customers. A grandmother could tell Siri to call her grandchild without needing English. Visually impaired Nigerians could operate their devices using the language they grew up speaking.
Global technology firms are making tentative steps. In late 2024, Google expanded voice input and dictation support to Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba across Gboard, Voice Search, and Translate. Microsoft added the trio to Azure Translator earlier. Yet the depth and scale of resources for these languages remain far behind those of English, Chinese, or even Swahili.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s education policy is moving in the wrong direction.
Recently, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, confirmed that Mandarin will be introduced into the secondary school curriculum from the 2025/26 session. At the same time, Nigerian languages in schools were streamlined to just Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. Hundreds of others were left out, with no policy or funding to support their growth or digital survival.
The problem is deeper. The Nigerian Constitution has never been officially translated into local languages, aside from one private Yoruba effort. Government websites remain exclusively in English. Community-driven projects like Masakhane and NaijaVoices are working to build datasets, but the scale of their efforts is minuscule compared to the need.
China provides another lesson. With over 290 languages and 55 recognized ethnic minority groups, China has not abandoned its linguistic diversity. Mandarin has been the unifying tongue since the 1950s, but minority languages like Tibetan, Uighur, Mongolian, and Zhuang continue to thrive through state-backed education, media, and digitization projects. Local scripts are encoded into Unicode, TV stations broadcast in native languages, and cultural institutions are funded to document and preserve them. The Chinese state recognizes that language is not just culture; it is sovereignty.
Nigeria must take the same stance. Investing in Mandarin while neglecting its own heritage sends the wrong message. In the digital era, code is where languages live or die. If Nigerian languages are missing from keyboards, spell checkers, translation tools, and voice assistants, they will fade into silence.
What Nigeria needs is a deliberate digital language strategy. Such a strategy must go beyond the major three and extend to endangered and minority tongues. It should fund projects that build dictionaries, lexicons, and large-scale text and audio corpora. It should mobilize universities, researchers, and local communities to generate resources that global technology firms can scale. Crucially, it should position languages as infrastructure, gateways through which citizens access healthcare, education, commerce, and culture.
Languages are not luxuries. They are bridges to participation in the modern world. To allow them to die is to disconnect millions from opportunity. With vision and investment, Nigeria can transform its vast linguistic heritage into a digital asset that strengthens governance, fuels innovation, and preserves identity.
The time to act is now. Policymakers must prioritize indigenous languages in technology and education. Researchers and entrepreneurs must collaborate to build open resources. Global technology firms must be challenged to support more Nigerian languages. And citizens must demand a future where their mother tongues are not just spoken but coded into the fabric of modern life.
If we fail, Nigeria risks losing its voices to silence. If we act, those same voices can echo into the digital age, carrying with them the wisdom, culture, and identity of generations. The choice is ours.
Olasubomi Sangonuga is a student journalist with keen interest in storytelling and topical social issues. He writes from Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State