The Role of Government in the Orthography Development of Minority Languages

Developing orthography for minority languages requires a careful assessment of issues going beyond linguistic decisions. In fact, it requires quite a number of considerations, especially language policy. Orthography has to do with a comprehensive writing system that is generally acceptable and recognized. It deals with the use of standard alphabet and letters, spelling rules and conventions in the codification of unwritten languages hence, an important aspect of language documentation. It has been argued that the lack of an orthography exposes a language to extinction or death thus, the need to develop orthography for minority languages becomes imperative. The goal of this paper, however, is to examine the role of government, in addition to linguistic decisions, in the development of orthography for minority languages. The motivation for this paper stems from the fact that many endangered languages are unwritten and efforts have been made over time to develop written codes for such languages. Beyond these efforts, many indigenous languages are gradually going into extinction due to poor implementation of policy on small size languages. This paper, among other things, describes the role of government and its agencies especially, National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) in the preservation of minority languages through orthographic development. The paper draws its conclusion by reiterating that government should provide guidelines and funds for the development of orthography, promote the use of indigenous orthography for the purpose of education and encourage literacy in indigenous languages. Finally, the paper recommends that language agency (Readers' project) be set up in every state of the federation in line with NERDC core objectives.