At the recently concluded 34th annual conference of the Linguistics Association of Nigeria, held on the 16th-18th October 2023 at the old Senate chamber, Federal University of Lokoja, Prof Harrison Adeniyi, chair of the organizing committee, commended Jehovah’s Witnesses for documenting Nigerian indigenous languages.
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Professor Adeniyi, who has been teaching linguistics at the Lagos State University in Nigeria for over 35 years, was one of the early birds at the Witnesses’ exhibition stand, located just outside the conference hall. He picked a copy of the newly released translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures in Nigerian pidgin, and soon thereafter, he announced to attendees to benefit themselves by visiting the Witnesses’ exhibition stand.
Another linguist, who presented a paper at the conference, Dr. Gerald Nweya, a senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and African Languages at the University of Ibadan, noted that from his research, he discovered Watchtower had developed helpful content and resources in about 300 African languages and 26 Nigerian languages. He said that the jw.org website is one of the best reservoirs of indigenous African languages, and the contents are helpful both for language researchers and the general public.
This is the first national conference of the Association after the pandemic.
