TONALITIES OF TRADITION AND MODERNITY: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF NUPE LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES IN A MULTILINGUAL NIGERIAN STATE

Abstract

While the Nupe language has been well-documented structurally, its sociocultural and ideological dimensions remain critically underexplored. This article addresses this gap, moving beyond descriptive linguistics to employ a language ideologies framework. We argue that Nupe's structural features—particularly its tonality—are not merely grammatical but are intensely ideologised, enlisted in metalinguistic discourses that authenticate cultural identity and police social boundaries. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Niger State, Nigeria, we analyse language contact with English and Nigerian Pidgin not as simple borrowing, but as a strategic negotiation of modernity. This study contends that the language's future depends not on external pressures alone but on internal ideological struggles, offering a new model for understanding language vitality in minority contexts.