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Nigerian English

My first day at the office a insurance representative came in to discuss something and as he was leaving, he called Jim “Sir” and I guess for a lack of a better word, I was referred to as “Sista”. There are some other peculiar aspects of Nigerian English, for example instead of “Welcome (to Nigeria)” they say “You are welcome” – I am getting used to it but it takes a while to realize that you needn’t say “Thank you” to get a “You are welcome” in response For starters, my American accent is completely useless – where I pronounce “t” as “d” – which is basically all “t”s – water, later, better etc. – they don’t understand. So I have to consciously pronounce “t”s as “t”s and it sounds very unnatural to me “wader” becomes “wata” and so on. Yesterday I caught myself speaking like this to Juan, an American. Embarrassing.

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Now, the funniest part of Nigerian English is the aptitude toward switching “C” and “S” in words with both. So, “disc” (as in a CD) becomes a “diks” – a mosque is “moks” , ogygen mask is a “maks”, office desk is a “deks”and most often – ask is “aks”. “Barbara aksed me when we were leaving to Lagos.” They say it very fast so you don’t pick up on it the first time but if you listen in it’s so funny! Emeka, my colleague was explaining some of the bookkeeping stuff to me and said something with “ks” and I had a really hard time not bursting into laughter – I had to make it look like I was coughing!There also seems to be a respect for long words. So instead of “Why was there no salary increase this year?” you hear “There was no salary INCREASEMENT this year?” or on the plane “Make sure you have all your belongings before leaving the plane.” is “Ensure you have all your belongings before DISEMBARKATION.”Confusion between when to use “each other” and “ourselves”. Two people are not looking at each other, but at themselves here. Not “we know each other” but we “know ourselves”. Past tense: with irregular verbs where the present resembles or is the same as the past tense, another syllable gets added for emphasis, I suppose. So, “I split the salary into half” becomes “I splitted...”, same with “I got stuck in traffic” is “I got stucked…” More clarification on the “sista” issue I brought up. I aksed my friend Isabelle whether they also call her “sista” and she started a litany about how lucky I am when they still call me sista because starting around your 30s, sista becomes “auntie” – a sign you are getting older. So Isabel is wishing she would still get called sista. I was happy for a couple of days until I got called auntie at the market… L devastating.More about language. Ok, the first couple of days I thought people were just plain rude. Then my colleague Sebastian explained to me that in the local languages, there are no equivalents for the words “Please” and “Sorry” (and many others, probably, like “excuse me”). Quite the contrary, if you use these words, you will NOT be understood! First, it’s shocking when you hear a mother on the market tell a 6-year old: “Put in the fridge!” – and a couple of weeks later you go to Abache barracks and you hear yourself saying: “Bring beer!” Today, I said to someone “Count the money!” Maybe it’s just too hot to bother speaking in longer sentences. Another one – “I will be right back” is said “I’m coming” (they haven’t even left yet!) – Maybe I am not used to hearing “I’m coming” in public places, is all….If something is good, it’s “good”. But, if something is better, it’s “more better”. Using the word “now” gets things done sometime within the next 24 hours. If you need something immediately, you have to aks for “NOW NOW”. You should see us use it within the expat community. Niels said yesterday: “We are leaving now, are you coming along?” The first thing I said was: “Are you leaving now or now-now?” It does have the desired effect though; using it gets things done, well, now now.

Lenka Beňová

Lenka Beňová

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Som človek s nenásytnou chuťou byť a byť tam, kde som ešte nebola. Zoznam autorových rubrík:  SúkromnéNezaradené

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