LANGUAGE ACCOMMODATION AND LINGUISTIC BORROWING IN THE GAMBARI QUARTERS, ÌLỌRIN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Language accommodation, a phenomenon in urban sociolinguistics, is the conscious and conscientious use of other languages’ repertoire in communication. Existing works on urban sociolinguistics, particularly in the Nigerian context, have mainly concentrated on the endangerment of minority languages among urban inhabitants with less attention paid to language accommodation. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate language accommodation among Hausa immigrants in the Gambari Quarters of Ilorin, in order to identify the patterns of linguistic relationship between Hausa and Yoruba as well as describe the dynamics of accommodation among the Hausa settlers. Howard Gile’s Communication Accommodation and Masanori Higa’s Directionality theories were adopted as the framework. The survey and ethnographic designs were used. Respondents comprised 288 Hausa and 96 Yoruba speakers between ages 18 and 50. Language Accommodation and Linguistic Borrowing questionnaire was administered to 384 respondents. Unstructured interviews were conducted with five Hausa and five Yoruba informants who had lived in the community for over 40 years, while participant observation was carried out in market, home, school, religious and workplace domains. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, while qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis. Approximately 99.5% of Hausa immigrants in Gambari have the same proficiency in the two languages. The mother tongue was retained in the home domain because the parents (77.1%) spoke Hausa to their children, demonstrating language loyalty and maintenance. In the market domain, 83.3% of the Hausa respondents used Yorùbá, confirming solidarity. In the school domain, 90.7% of the Hausa speakers conversed in Yorùbá with their friends and classmates. In the workplace, 95.2% of the Hausa respondents conversed in Yorùbá, showing language accommodation in accordance with the politics of interaction. In discussing religious matters, 64.1% of the Hausa respondents used Yorùbá, reinforcing language adaptability. There was heavy borrowing of Hausa words related to religion, cuisine, clothing, and animal husbandry among others into the Yorùbá language. Linguistic phenomena including morphophonemic processes, such as consonant/vowel substitution, deletion/eletion, for instance, were observed in many of these words. For example, the expression gánníá-fíjí (seeing is believing), was borrowed from Hausa. Borrowed Hausa words were made to conform to the CVCV syllable structure of the Yorùbá syllable pattern through vowel insertion. This was evident in words like lállѐ (henna), tàttàsaí (pepper) and másállácí (mosque) which became laali (henna), tàtàsé (pepper) and másálásí (mosque) respectively. Hausa lexical items containing glottalised consonants, ɓ, ɗ, ƙ, were substituted with closely related sounds like b, d, k. Language accommodation in the Gambari Quarters of Ilorin signalled harmonious coexistence among Hausa immigrants and their Yoruba hosts. This linguistic practice is recommended for other communities with mixed ethnic groups in the country.