Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed
I don't understand the reluctance for considering Nigeria an English speaking country. English is the only official language, English is widely spoken, and Nigeria is a former British colony. What's missing to make it more legitimate?
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The fact that it's not the mother tongue of the local population (vs South Africa which at least has a native-born Anglo minority), that there are much more commonly spoken languages, and that only about half of the Nigerian population is even able to speak English. It's the language of business & government but not necessarily of the people.
I agree that these things are not so clear cut though and that the presence of English manifests itself in different ways - and in the case of multi-lingual Nigeria it seems to exist in particularly unique space. That said, from my knowledge, Johannesburg is still English-speaking to an extent that Lagos is not.