Raising Your Child Abroad to Speak Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa: What Really Works

You speak Yoruba with your siblings and Igbo with your mother on the phone. But your child, growing up in London, Houston or Toronto, answers you in English. Sound familiar?

You're not alone, and it's not too late. Here's what research really says about keeping a home language alive, in plain words.

The "third generation" problem

Researchers have long seen the same pattern in immigrant families. The first generation speaks the home language. Their children understand it but often answer in the local language. And by the third generation, the grandchildren, the language is usually gone. A 2006 US study described immigrant languages being lost "by the third generation at the latest".

Here's why that matters for Nigerian families. The UK's 2021 Census counted 270,768 people born in Nigeria living in England and Wales, up from 191,183 in 2011. By our sum, that's a rise of about 42% in ten years. Many of their children are being raised right now, and the choices parents make at home decide whether the language survives.

What decides whether a child keeps the language

The amount they hear

This is the biggest one. A 2022 study of 136 Dutch families found that how much a child hears a language mattered more than any family rule. In the researchers' words:

"input quantity is crucial" Verhagen, Kuiken and Andringa, Applied Psycholinguistics, 2022

An older study of babies found the same thing: the more of their day they heard a language, the more words they knew in it.

Who speaks it at home

A big survey of 1,899 families in Belgium, by researcher Annick De Houwer, looked at which families raised children who actually spoke the home language. Here's what it found:

• Both parents speak only the home language at home: 97% of families had a child who spoke it.
• One parent speaks the home language, the other speaks both: 93%.
• One parent, one language (mum speaks Yoruba, dad speaks English): 74%.
• One parent speaks both languages, the other only the local language: just 36%.

By our sum, when both parents use the home language, families are almost three times as likely to raise a child who speaks it as when only one parent mixes it in. And even the popular "one parent, one language" method lost about 1 in 4 families.

These were families in Belgium, not Nigerian families. But the lesson travels: the more the language is used at home, by more people, the better.

Even Nigeria is leaning on English

You might think, "At least children in Nigeria learn it at school." Not anymore. In 2022, Nigeria approved a policy for the first six years of primary school to be taught in the mother tongue. But in November 2025, the Education Minister cancelled it, making English the language of teaching from nursery to university.

"This is about evidence-based governance." Dr Tunji Alausa, Minister of Education, November 2025

Whatever you think of that decision, it means one thing: in Nigeria and abroad, the home is now where Nigerian languages are passed on.

A myth to forget

You may have heard that "UNESCO said Igbo will disappear". We looked, and couldn't find any UNESCO document that says so. The stories don't even agree on the dates: some say UNESCO predicted it in 2006, others 2011 or 2012, with deadlines from 2025 to 2050. Igbo is still spoken by tens of millions of people. The real risk isn't the language dying in Nigeria. It's your child not learning it.

What a home language really gives your child

Let's be honest here. You may have read that speaking two languages makes children cleverer. A large 2018 review of 152 studies found no clear evidence that bilingualism improves the brain's control skills, once biased studies were accounted for.

But the real benefits are strong enough on their own:

• Talking with family. Your child can speak with grandparents, aunties and cousins in their own language.
• Identity. Knowing where they come from, in the words their family uses.
• A real skill. Another language is useful for travel, work and life.

What you can start today

1. Speak it, every day. Pick times that are always in the home language: breakfast, bedtime stories, the school run.
2. Get both parents involved if you can. The research above shows this makes the biggest difference. If only one of you speaks it, the other can still learn simple phrases and support it.
3. Make the language needed. Video calls with grandparents who speak little English give your child a real reason to use it.
4. Use songs, stories and films. Nigerian music, folk tales and Nollywood films in Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa make it fun, not homework.
5. Find other children. Weekend language schools, church or mosque groups and family friends with children who speak the language all help.
6. Don't punish mixing. If your child answers in English, gently repeat in the home language and keep going. Shame makes children stop trying.
7. Get a teacher if you need one. Lessons with a Nigerian teacher can add structure, reading and writing.

By our sum: how much time is enough?

There's no magic number. But here's an example to help you plan. Say your child is awake about 13 hours a day. By our sum, that's about 91 hours a week. School and friends take a big share of that in English. If you give your child just 2 hours a day in the home language, at meals, bedtime and family calls, that's about 14 hours a week, around 15% of their waking time.

The research is clear that more is better. So start with what you can manage, and keep adding.

If you'd like a teacher to help, Scholarleveling has live classes with Nigerian teachers that your child can join from anywhere, plus a parent code so you can follow their progress.

Read next: what a Nigerian tutor online really costs, or whether your child abroad should sit WAEC or NECO.