410
Rotimi Taiwo
Rotimi Taiwo
Nigerian English
1 Background
Nigerian English (NigE) belongs to the family of West African Englishes. It commands the largest number of
non-native speakers of English in the West African sub-region. Nigeria’s overwhelming dominance in terms
of population makes her variety of English the prototype of West African English. Nigeria’s first contact with
the English language could be traced to the mid 16th century when European traders and English sailors had
trade relations with the people in the coastal areas, particularly in the places that are presently described as
the south-west, south-east and south-south Nigeria. After the partitioning of Africa at the Berlin Conference
of 1884, colonization became formalized and Nigeria became a colony of Britain. The growth in missionary
activities then led to the implantation and promotion of the English language in the country.
By the time Nigeria got her independence in 1960, English had already been so entrenched in the educational and political structure of the country that the only option left to Nigerians was to enhance the survival and nurture of the language in the country. The fact that this language came to operate in an extreme
multilingual context also helps to sustain its use as it now serves as a useful tool for effective cross-cultural
communication. In contemporary times, English has been fully entrenched in the social life of an average
Nigerian. Its use has been institutionalized across different linguistic domains of the Nigerian society – business, official communication, schools, the media, and even in home setting.
English operates side by side with several indigenous languages. It is not exactly clear how many languages are spoken in Nigeria, but the number of languages listed for Nigeria by Ethnologue, a database of language resources, is 521. Nigeria has three major indigenous languages: Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, also recognized constitutionally as regional languages because they are spoken by a majority of the people in the
northern, eastern and western parts of the country respectively. They are also constitutionally recognized as
national languages. There are also nine other languages which have well over a million speakers, ie, Edo, Efik
(Ibibio), Fulfulde, Idoma, Igala, Ijo, Kanuri, Nupe, and Tiv; and the minority languages numbering over four
hundred. In addition to these indigenous languages, there are the two large exogenous ones – English and
Arabic (Awonusi 2007). There is no accurate figure of the number of speakers of English in Nigeria. However,
going by the literacy level of the country, where literacy is largely equated with the ability to use the English
language, 57 % of the 140 million people in the country can be said to speak one variety or the other of the NigE.
English exists in a continuum, with Nigerian Pidgin English (NigPE) being the basilectal form of the language, and Nigerian Standard English (NigStE) representing the acrolectal standard (Walters 2007). Because
of the great linguistic diversity in Nigeria, both NigPE and NigStE enjoy great success as link languages, and
as Bokamba and others have noted, it facilitates linguistic “code-switching” and “code-mixing” in the region.
That is to say that, typically, four options are available for one Nigerian wishing to interact with another: (a)
local languages; (b) national languages (such as Yoruba or Hausa); (c) NigPE; and (d) NigStE (Bokamba 1991).
NigE has been given a lot of attention by linguists, who have focused on the different aspects of its linguistic features. These include the lexical, syntactic, semantic and phonological features (see Tomori 1967;
Banjo 1969; Odumuh 1981; Kujore 1985; Adegbija 1989; Jowitt 1991; Bamiro 1994; Udofot 1997; Igboanusi 1998,
2007; Jowitt 2000; Gut 2004; Lamidi 2007; Taiwo 2009). Many scholars have also tried to account for the varieties of NigE, however, Banjo’s 1995 classification appears to be the most popular account. Banjo recognized
the following categories:
Variety I:
mother-tongue based (associated with heavy mother tongue transfers characteristic of the semieducated, generally below post primary education)
Variety II:
influenced by mother-tongue (shows mother tongue transfers and lack of vital phonological distinctions, associated with speakers who may have at least primary education)
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Nigerian English
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Variety III: close to RP (characteristic of some speakers with university education)
Variety IV: indistinguishable from RP (associated with speakers who may be more highly educated and
some who have some training in the Humanities and phonetics) (Ugorji 2010: 134–135).
Despite the domestication of English in Nigeria and its recognition as the country’s official language and
language of wider communication, one problem that remains unsolved till date is the issue of standardization and codification of NigE. However, some efforts have been and are being made along this direction
(see Jowitt 1991; Igboanusi 2002). The Nigeria English Studies Association (NESA) has also launched a project for the compilation of a Dictionary of Nigerian English. An ongoing project by the International Corpus
of English (ICE Nigeria) is another effort being made to codify NigE. Although scholars have recognized and
widely described a kind of standard variety of NigE, many Nigerians will rather promote the teaching of the
exoglossic Standard British English because of its mutual intelligibility to several other speakers of English
worldwide.
2 Notable WAVE Features of Nigerian English
This section will focus on the notable features of NigE that appear in the WAVE questionnaire. These features,
to a large extent, can be said to be fairly common in an average NigE speaker’s usage, and are generally intelligible to a typical NigE speaker. English teachers, especially at the secondary and tertiary levels of education consider the presence of these features in a student’s usage as errors. Their use is therefore not encouraged in formal spoken and written discourse.
F8
myself/meself instead of I in coordinate subject (my mother and myself went for my sister’s graduation)
Other reflexive pronouns that may be used in this manner are yourself instead of you; himself instead of
him, and so forth. Reflexive pronouns are not only used in coordinate subjects, they may also feature in expressions such as: I myself understand it; you yourself have to be careful, where they are redundant.
F49
regularization of plural formation: extension of -s to StE irregular plurals (Our childrens are well behaved)
F55
different count/mass noun distinctions resulting in use of plural for StE singular (Our staffs are now on
break)
F71
no number distinction in demonstratives (This people are wicked)
F128 leveling of past tense/past participle verb forms: regularization of irregular verb paradigms (I have
binded my project)
F49, F55, F71, and F128 are traceable to the problem of improper learning of irregular plural noun and past
tense formation, number and count/mass noun distinctions. These features are common in the usage of
Nigerians with little education (i.e., those who use varieties I and II of Banjo 1995). They have the tendency to
generalize the regular rules. Some of such expressions also feature in the usage of some tertiary institution
students, especially such examples as in F128.
F62
use of zero article where StE has indefinite article (He was commissioned into Air Force last year)
F77
omission of genitive suffix: possession expressed through bare juxtaposition of nouns (My sister school
is vacating tomorrow)
F62 and F77 are more commonly associated with the users of variety III in Banjo’s classification.
F169 non-standard system underlying responses to yes/no questions (Don’t you like it? Yes = ‘no, I don’t like
it’).
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Rotimi Taiwo
Such inappropriate responses only come up in yes/no questions which start with contracted forms (don’t,
won’t, haven’t, etc.). When the questions are directly asked (Do you like it? Have you seen it?), the correct
responses will normally be supplied. This confusion can also be observed in responses to negative tagquestions (You don’t like beans, do you?) This feature is quite common even in the usage of variety III speakers
of NigE.
F208 deletion of to before infinitives (Please allow him do it)
Structures such as F208 portray the influence of NigP on NigE usage. NigP does not normally favour the use of
infinitives, e.g., I wan go Amerika ‘I want to go to America’; he wan komot Nigeria ‘he wants to leave Nigeria’.
This occurs more frequently in the speech of varieties I and possibly II of NigE users.
F209 addition of to where StE has bare infinitves (She made him to do it)
While F208 will generally be found in the usage of people of low education due to the influence of NigP, F209
is an indication of overgeneralization of the rule of infinitives and it will commonly be associated with educated NigE speakers.
F214 conjunction doubling clause + conj. + conj. + clause (Though he was instructed about what to do, still
yet, he made some mistakes)
F221 other adverbs having the same form as adjectives (Please run here quick)
Double conjunctions and adverb-adjective confusion occur very often in the usage of the partially educated
Nigerians, like secondary school drop-outs. They reflect an evidence of incomplete mastery of English conjunctions, adverbs and adjectives.
F134 like as a quotative particle (The man is like ‘you don’t mean you are my friend’s son’)
The use of like as a quotative particle is a characteristic of the speech of young educated Nigerians, especially
students of secondary and tertiary schools.
3 Features not represented in the WAVE profile
Nigerian English is characterized by several other morphosyntactic features, which are not represented in the
WAVE questionnaire. In this section, I will exemplify the prominent ones, which I believe are significant for
identifying NigE as a non-native variety.
Noun phrase
(a) Double subjects
(1) a. Me I don’t know what you want. (‘I don’t know what you want.’)
b. We workers in this country are not well paid. (‘Workers in this country are not well paid.’)
(b) Subject copying
(2) My mother she is a nurse.
Pronouns
(3) a.
The use of they without any distinct reference:
They have stolen my notebook
b. The use of they to mark respect:
They are calling you
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In (3a) above, they has no explicit reference. It refers to an unidentifiable person (Lamidi 2007: 244). In (3b),
they refers to somebody much older than the speaker. These occur in the usage of varieties I and II of NigE
speakers.
Prepositions
The use of prepositions is generally problematical for many Nigerian English speakers. The appropriate preposition may either be omitted, or the wrong one is used, as in the expamples below:
Omission of preposition:
(4) We are asked to fill Ø the form (StE – fill in)
Use of wrong preposition:
(5) a. Are you going with your car? (StE – in your car)
b. I congratulate you for your award (congratulate on)
Insertion when not necessary:
(6) a. I can do it by myself. (StE – do it myself)
b. He stressed on the importance of reading.
Lexical reduplication
(7) a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Many many people are there. (several)
You too can win Blackberry every one one hour. (every hour)
There are small small girls in your school. (many small girls)
I need half half bag of rice and beans. (half each)
We are contributing one one thousand for the excursion. (one thousand each)
I see my mother two two weeks. (at two weeks interval)
Verbless sentences
(8) a. How now?
b. How life?
c. How work?
Focus construction
(9) a. You are very funny, you this boy.
b. You this man, I am warning you.
Interrogation
(10) a.
I think as a semi-question marker, as in:
You don’t want to go, I think?
b. Not so as a question tag, as in:
You are a student of this university, not so?
Idiomatic usage
(11) a.
b.
c.
d.
Last but not the least (‘last but not least’)
Bite the finger that fed you (‘bite the hand that fed you’)
Crack your brain (‘rack your brain’)
Not on seat (‘has gone out’)
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Rotimi Taiwo
4 Conclusion
Nigerian English is an emerging non-native variety of English. It has been well studied and its distinct features have been widely described by scholars. The variety acquired its distinct features because it has been
linguistically, pragmatically and creatively domesticated to cater for the needs of the users. The focus of this
study is on the description of the distinctive morpho-syntactic features that are reflected in the linguistic performance of the speakers of the NigE variety. Although the NigE variety shares a number of the features identified in the WAVE profile with some other varieties of English, especially the West African Englishes, it has
many other features that mark it out as a distinct variety of non-native English with the largest number of
speakers in Africa.
Appendix: Overview of WAVE features attested in Nigerian English
#
7
8
11
14
16
34
41
45
46
47
48
49
55
59
62
71
77
78
81
84
85
88
feature
NigE example
I. Pronouns, pronoun exchange, nominal gender
me instead of I in coordinate subject
Me and my sister are in the same school.
myself /meself instead I in coordinate
My mother and myself went for my sister’s graduation.
subject
regularized reflexives paradigm
Those people don’t love theirself.
no number distinction in reflexives (i.e.
Let us keep it for ourself.
plural forms ending in self)
emphatic reflexives with own
They brought it by their own self.
forms or phrases for the second person
You people have to be very careful.
plural pronoun than you
Singular it for plural they in reflexives (i.e.
I bought two trousers. It is jeans.
plural forms ending in self
insertion of it where StE favours zero
We eat akara here as it is being eaten elsewhere in Yorubaland.
deletion of it in referential it is
What’s happening here? Is very hot.
constructions
deletion of it in non-referential it is
okay, is time for lunch.
constructions
II. Noun Phrase
regularization of plural formation:
Many childrens came for the programme.
extension of -s to StE irregular plurals
regularization of plural formation:
I just bought the furnitures.
phonological regularization
different count/mass noun distinctions
This place is out of bounds to non-staffs.
resulting in use of plural for StE singular
double determiners (e.g.
This your son is very funny.
demonstrative/article + possessive
pronoun with possessive pronoun
preposed or postposed
use of zero article where StE has indefinite
He was commissioned into Ø Nigerian Army.
article
no number distinction in demonstratives
This people are wicked.
omission of gender suffix; possession
my sisterØ school is vacating tomorrow.
expressed through bare juxtaposition of
nouns
double comparatives and superlatives
It is more better to speak out now.
much as comparative marker
The situation is much serious than I thought.
comparative marking with than
I love my mother (more than) than my father.
comparative marking with more … than
He has more clothes and all of us.
III. Verb Phrase: tense and aspect
wider range of uses of progressive be+
I am liking my new job.
V-ing than in StE extension of stative verbs
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rating
A
A
C
C
C
B
C
C
C
C
B
B
A
A
A
B
C
C
C
C
C
B
415
Nigerian English
89
99
101
109
116
128
130
144
145
158
169
170
174
175
185
186
194
204
208
209
214
215
216
217
219
221
222
wider range of uses of progressive
be+V-ing than in StE extension to habitual
contexts
Leveling of the difference between
present perfect and simple past: simple
past for standard present perfect.
simple present for continuative or
experiential perfect
perfect marker already
come-based future/ingressive markers
IV. Verb phrase: modal verbs
leveling of past tense/past participle Verb
forms; unmarked forms
leveling of Verb: past tense/past
participle replacing the past participle
use of gotten instead of gotwith distinct
meanings (dynamic vs static)
use of gotten instead of got (i.e. gotten
with static meaning or neutralization of
the static/dynamic function)
VII. Negation
Invariant don’t for all persons in the
present tense
non-standard system underlying
responses to yes/no questions
VIII. Agreement
invariant present tense forms due to
zero marking for the third person
singular
Deletion of auxiliary be: before
progressives
deletion of auxiliary be; before gonna
IX. Relativization
relativizer that or what in non-restrictive
contexts
which for who
resumptive /shadow pronoun
X. Complementation
as what/than what in comparative clause
deletion of to before infinitives
addition of to where StE has bare infinites
XI. Adverbial subordination
Conjunction doubling clause +
conj.+conj. + clause
conjunction doubling correlative
conjunction
XII. Adverbial preposition
omission of StE proposition (not
necessarily with prepositional verbs, but
e.g. locative prepositions and preposition
before temporal expressions)
use of prepositions (either StE
prepositions or postposed
preposition-like elements)
Adverb-forming suffuxes – way and -time
other adverbs have the same functions as
adjectives
too; too much, very much ‘very’as qualifier
Every Saturday, I am usually go to my village.
B
Were you ever in Kano?
C
I taught him since 2009.
B
We got to Kano a month already. ‘We got to Kano a month
previously’
He is coming to attend to you. ‘He is about to attend to you.’
B
This is the boy who throwed the stone.
B
He had went to Lagos before I arrived.
B
Have you gotten your call-up letter? ‘Have you received your
call-up letter?’
My university has gotten a logo for 25th Anniversary. ‘has’
A
My mother don’t like me waking up late.
C
Don’t you like it? – Yes ‘No, I don’t like it.’
A
He come and tell me I was wrong.
C
Everyone suppose to know him by now
A
I Ø gonna do it now
C
My son that works in Lagos.
B
The boy which came here.
The car which I drove it.
C
C
The situation is tougher than what you think it is.
Please allow him do it.
She made him to do it.
A
A
A
Despite being instructed on what to do still yet he made some
misakes.
Although I did not do well, but I was not punished.
B
We’ll be there Saturday next week.
B
We can do it in morning time.
A
Why are you coming at this late time.
Please run quick.
C
A
Knowing your house is too difficult.
A
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A
A
C
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227
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Rotimi Taiwo
XIII. Discourse organization and word order
inverted word order in indirect question
I am thinking where are we going to go now.
like as a quotative particle
The man was like ‘you don’t mean you are my friend’s son.
B
C
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