Contribution of Yoruba Indigenous Language Film to Culture Propagation and Language Development

Language is the identity of people and racial recognition. Indigenous language films seem to have been the extant means of language development across ethnic groups in Nigeria. However, the use of indigenous language among the people of Nigeria requires attention because western education has relegated the language of the people to the background through promotion of foreign ones. Some Nigerians prioritise the indigenous language and freely speak it with their children and people. It has been noticed that majority of Yoruba people have replaced communicating with their indigenous language with foreign ones. This trend has signaled the extinction of some indigenous language in Nigeria because people have fanatically stuck to the use of foreign language to the detriment of the local language. Indigenous language films seem to be the antidote to this menace. Many Yoruba language films have promoted the propagation of the language as some Yoruba film makers continue to enforce the use of the language among the growing fans of their films while some have allowed status quo to persist. We have used a Humanistic Regeneration Theory to interrogate the content of this paper. The research paper also adopted qualitative research method and apply content analysis as instrument to explore related media, identified patterns, themes, and meaning of the variables. The researchers purposively chose Mainframe film: Magun (2001) among others, which was produced and directed by an astute filmmaker Tunde Kelani, to establish the impact of indigenous language film on the propagation of Yoruba language itself. Kelani’s films and that of other few have helped many to use the language more often than not. This same syndrome has been affecting other Nigerian languages, however, this paper chose Yoruba as a case study among other three major languages and recommended for continuation to keep the tide.