Artificial Intelligence, Language Policy, and the Future of Indigenous Nigerian Languages in Multilingual Nigeria

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the nature of communication, education, governance and the production of knowledge, offering unprecedented opportunities and challenges for multilingual societies. Although AI-based technologies have enabled digital participation for a large number of well-resourced languages, the lack of digital resources, computational infrastructure, and policy support for many indigenous languages puts them on the margins. With more than 500 indigenous languages in Nigeria and English and Nigerian Pidgin, this divide poses important questions of linguistic equity, cultural sustainability, and digital inclusion. This paper explores the relationship between AI, language policy and the future of indigenous Nigerian languages, drawing on the Digital Language Vitality Framework, which highlights the role of digital presence and technological accessibility for the survival of languages, and the AI Ethics Framework, which calls for fairness, inclusivity, transparency, and respect for cultural and linguistic diversity in AI systems. Based on the latest research in language policy, computational linguistics, digital humanities, and artificial intelligence, the paper discusses the potential and limitations of AI in language documentation, language education, machine translation, speech technologies and indigenous knowledge systems. It maintains that while AI holds great promise for revitalization and promotion of indigenous Nigerian languages, such gains will be unevenly distributed if sufficient attention is not paid to the development of language policies, digital language infrastructures, and language datasets, speech corpora, and natural language processing technologies. The paper also argues that the integration of AI governance and inclusive language planning is crucial to safeguarding linguistic rights and promoting equitable digital participation. The document brings to the fore four key pillars: technological innovation, ethical AI development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and language policies that look forward to support the long-term vitality of indigenous Nigerian languages. The paper therefore calls for a broad review of the Nigeria language policy to include the use of artificial intelligence and digital language planning, investment in indigenous language technologies and better inter-agency, university, technology and indigenous language community collaboration to support multilingual development in the digital age in Nigeria.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, language policy, indigenous Nigerian languages, digital language vitality, AI ethics, and digital humanities.