For these people, English is an additional language, spoken alongside their mother tongues. In Nigeria, it is increasingly common to find children who cannot speak their native languages, even while their grandparents are fluent. So, if children lose their mother tongue, they lose more than just a set of words. It might mean insisting that children know how to greet, pray or tell a story in their mother tongue, even while they write their essays in English. What I do know is that a child fluent in their native language carries a piece of history.