Sociocultural implications of Nigerian English usage
Nigerian English is a nativized form of English. Like South African English, its nativization and development as a New World English corresponds roughly with the period of colonization and post-colonization by Britain. Nigerian English became a nativized language that functions uniquely within its own cultural context. Nigerian English has long been a controversial idea, in that the idea of a "Standard Nigerian English" is difficult to establish, considering the fossilization that has occurred in the formal instruction of English in many regions of Nigeria, due largely to a variety of factors including "interference, lack of facilities, and crowded classrooms." Due to the contact between British Standard English and Nigerian English, which have two very different sets of grammatical, pronunciation, and spelling rules, there has arisen a predominant occurrence of "faulty analogy" in what Okoro refers to as "substandard" varieties of Nigerian English. However, there are a few features that have united across NE communities that bridge the differences between different varieties even within NE, all pertaining to cultural values that are expressed uniquely in English terms. Two prevalent examples are "sorry" and "sir." The literal meaning of sorry usually indicates some sort of responsibility on the part of the person saying it; however, for all of the varieties of NE, it is used to express sympathy in a unique way, or to show empathy to whoever has experienced misfortune. "Sir," or the replacement of names with titles, indicates respect and a high value for politeness. The tacking on of "sir" to another title illustrates a greater level of prestige than normal, or an instance of being more polite than the norm. Though the exact levels of Nigerian English usage are contested, one suggestion indicates there are 4 levels of usage within this nativized English:
Level 1: Pidgin, spoken as the casual language
Level 2: A step above, and the most spoken. Spoken by those with elementary education
Level 3: Marked by more expansive lexicon, fluency, and using features of Level 1 speakers are "avoided," spoken by those with "secondary education"
Level 4: Proposed as the NSE as its features are very similar "to Standard English," spoken by those with a college education
These levels are only one proposed differentiation of the pragmatic realizations of Nigerian English. Because of the nature of its presence in Nigeria, English has been a point of contention among Nigerian residents who strive for a more nativisitic lifestyle. However, due to the nature of English's introduction and role in exerting the values of colonization on a post-colonial Nigeria, some would call English inseparable from the nature of language in the region.
Lexico-semantic innovations
There are three basic subsets of innovations that have occurred as a result of the nativization of English in Nigeria: "loanwords, coinages, and semantic shifts."
Loanwords
A loanword is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as "a word adopted from a foreign language with little or no modification." Nigerian English has a plethora of loanwords that have no direct English equivalents, but have rooted themselves into the dialect and have a unique meaning. The examples below of prominent Nigerian English loanwords are provided by Grace Ebunlola :
agbada: a kind of flowing dress for men, especially among the Yoruba: ‘Chief Ogini wore agbada to the wedding ceremony.’
babanriga: a kind of long, loose dress for men, especially among the Hausas: ‘I really like your babanriga.’
akara: an item of food, also referred to as ‘bean cake’
akamu pap: a kind of corn porridge: ‘This morning I ate akara and akamu.’
akpu, banga, eba, egusi, ogbono, tuwo: ‘soup’, as in: ‘Anytime I eat eba I have stomach upset’; ‘Can I eat some tuwo rice?’; ‘I don’t like the smell of akpu’; ‘I will like to eat ogbono soup mixed with egusi.’
danfo, okada:a mode of transportation: ‘You either go by danfo or you take an okada.’
adakaji, oba: chieftaincy titles, as in: ‘The Adakaji II was at the coronation of the oba of Lagos.’
Coinages
Coinages, though similar to loanwords, function as a sort of colloquialism that is spoken in English but has a unique cultural meaning. These are also especially prolific in Nigerian English. Compared to loanwords, coinages typically have a short lifespan and are adopted for unique cultural purposes of the present, and as such, die out quickly after their acquisition. Examples are provided by Abdullahi-Idiagbon and Olaniyi:
Long-leg
Free and fair
Come of age
Carpet crossing
No-go area
Man of timber and caliber
Money bag
Political juggernaut/Heavyweight
Political bride
Accord Concordia
Bottom power
Coinages are not the same as acronyms, though Nigerian English also has unique acronyms. Acronyms serve a variety of functions, and follow the same rules as Standard English acronyms: the first letters are taken from each word in a phrase.
Semantic shifts
The study of semantics is, overall, a general study of the meaning of words. A common example of semantic shift is in the reappropriation of the meaning of English words for Nigerian purposes and uses. This can cause the original English meanings to be "shifted, restricted, or extended." For example, in some areas, though the international meaning of trek has a connotation of long distance or difficult journey, the Nigerian use is to "walk a short distance." A particularly expansive example of semantics in NE is the use of a variety of greetings. This stretching of meaning can not only change the meaning of the English phrase, but also represent something from Nigerian culture: for example, the saying "goodnight, ma" can be said regardless of time of day, and functions simply as an assumption that the person in question will not be seen until the next day. This has especially been noticed in Yoruba culture.
Phonology
As the literature currently stands, most phonological studies have analyzed a plethora of Nigerian English speakers from a wide range of backgrounds. There has been special focus on such regions as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. Nigerian English can be thought of in a similar way to American English in this approach: just as in American English, Nigerian English varies from region to region, and as such, phonological variables are realized in different ways in different regions. Some common features across Nigerian Englishes include:
Voiced -z sounds in which the "s" is present in spelling become voiceless, i.e. "boys" is pronounced.
Backing of /ɪ/ vowels into /e/, exhibited in words such as "expect", pronounced /ekˈspekt/ in NE.
Because voiced palato-alveolar fricative /ʒ/ is not present in most Nigerian varieties, any words including this phoneme are converted into the -sh /ʃ/ sound, such as in the word "conclusion", pronounced in NE.
Prosody
Early studies have associated Nigerian English with being syllable-timed rather than stress-timed, but the dialect has thus far evaded specific grouping in either category. Milde and Jan-Torsten suggest that Nigerian English is closer to a tonal language, alike to other West Africantonal languages, but rather than tones being associated with stressed and unstressed syllables, they are associated with grammatical functions. They suggest that "articles, prepositions and conjunctions tend to have a low tone, whereas nouns, verbs and adjectives are usually produced with a high tone."
Use in Technology
In July 2019, Google announced its new Nigerian English accented voice for Maps, Google Assistant, and other Google products. It is based on work of speech synthesis created by a team at Google led by Nigerian linguist Kola Tubosun. In January 2020, Oxford English Dictionary added over two dozen new words of Nigerian English into the Oxford Dictionary.
