English for Political Studies (Advanced Level)
December 3, 2014
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English in West Africa: The Case of Nigeria
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
Capital
Largest city
Abuja
Lagos
Official languages
Recognised regional languages
English
Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba
Demonym
Government
President
Independence from the United
Kingdom
Nigerian
Federal Presidential Republic
Goodluck Jonathan
Declared and
Republic
recognized:
declared:
October 1,
October 1,
1960
1963
Area
Total:923,768 km² (32nd),
356,667 sq mi
Population
2013 United Nation est.:
174,507,539 (7th)
GDP (nominal) 2014 estimate
Total $: 594.257 billion (21st)
Gini (2010)
HDI (2013)
Currency
Water (%): 1.4
Density: 188.9/km² (71st),
489.3/sq mi
Per capita: $3,416 (118th)
48.8 (high)
0.504 (low) (152nd)
Nigerian naira (₦) (NGN)
The Federal Republic of Nigeria is a federal constitutional republic made up of 36 States and a Federal Capital Territory,
Abuja.
The site of many former kingdoms and empires (the Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit the West African coast
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in the 15 century), the modern political state of Nigeria has its origins in the British colonization of the region during the
late XIX to early XX centuries; it emerged from the combination of two neighbouring British protectorates: the Southern
Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate (1914). During the colonial period, the British set up
administrative and legal structures whilst retaining traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria achieved independence in 1960, but
plunged into civil war several years later (1967-1970). It has since alternated between democratically-elected civilian
governments (Olusegun Obasanjo) and military dictatorships (military juntas, Sani Abacha), with its 2011 presidential
elections being viewed as the first to be conducted reasonably freely and fairly.
Nigeria is often referred to as the “Giant of Africa”, due to its large population and economy. With more than 174 million
inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world. The
country is inhabited by over 500 ethnic groups, of which the three largest are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. Regarding
religion, Nigeria is roughly divided in half between Christians, who live mostly in the southern and central parts of the
country, and Muslims, concentrated mostly in the northern and southwestern regions. A minority of the population
practice religions indigenous to Nigeria, such as those native to Igbo and Yoruba peoples.
In 2014, Nigeria’s economy (GDP) became the largest in Africa, worth more than $500 billion, and overtook South Africa
st
to become the world's 21 largest economy. By 2050, Nigeria is expected to become one of the world’s top 20
economies. The country's oil reserves have played a major role in its growing wealth and influence. Nigeria is considered
to be an emerging market by the World Bank and has been identified as a regional power in Africa. It is also a member of
the MINT group of countries (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey), which are widely seen as the globe’s next "BRIClike" economies. It is also listed among the "Next Eleven" economies set to become among the biggest in the world.
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Nigeria is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union, OPEC and the United Nations among other
international organizations.
British contacts with the West African region date from the sixteenth century and varieties of English were well
established in coastal areas in the eighteenth century (McArthur 2003). The term West African English (WAE)
primarily covers six countries, among which Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone are former British
colonies, while Liberia has a unique American connection. English is official in each (in Cameroon alongside French). It
is typically acquired as a second, third, or fourth language, and the line between Standard English as used by a small
elite and the more widely used West African Pidgin English (WAPE) can be hard to draw. English-speakers generally
understand each other, but there are differences inside each territory. The continuum of WAE and WAPE also includes
hybridization with local languages, such as Wolof, Ashanti, Hausa and Igbo.
WAPE in its various forms is the outcome of long-term trading between Africans and Europeans, and has played an
enduring role in the development of English creoles in the US, the Caribbean, and Central America. WAE, on the other
hand, evolved out of the formal teaching of the language during the colonial era, when grammatical and literary
studies began to be central to educational success.
Inevitably, as with standard French, Portuguese, and Spanish in other African colonies, Standard English became both
a necessity for communication between administrations and their educated subjects and a prized vehicle of upward
mobility. As a result, it became the elite medium of the post-colonial establishment, while various lingua francas –
including Pidgin – served the immediate needs of the majority. Contact between WAE and such lingua francas
contributed to increase its complexity and distinctness.
According to Ethnologue, the number of languages currently estimated and catalogued in Nigeria is 529. This number
includes 522 living languages and 7 extinct languages. Of the living languages, 21 are institutional, 76 are developing,
357 are vigorous, 26 are in trouble, and 42 are dying. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one
language. The official language of Nigeria, English, the former colonial language, was chosen to facilitate the cultural
and linguistic unity of the country. The choice of English as the official language was partially related to the fact that a
part of Nigerian population spoke English as a result of British colonization that ended in 1960.
Nigeria’s linguistic diversity is a microcosm of Africa as a whole, since the major languages spoken in Nigeria represent
three major families of African languages – the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Yoruba, Igbo, the Hausa
language is Afro-Asiatic; and Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily Borno State, is a member of the Nilo-Saharan
family. Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English, being the official
language, is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language,
however, remains an exclusive preserve of a small minority of the country’s urban elite, and is not spoken at all in
some rural areas. With approximately 75% of Nigeria’s populace in the rural areas, the major languages of
communication in the country remain indigenous languages, the most widely spoken being Hausa (with about 21% of
the population as L1 speakers), Igbo (about 16%) and Yoruba (20%). Thus the government encourages each child to
learn one of these three major languages – having semi-official status – other than his/her own mother tongue, in
addition to English.
Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardized languages from a number of
different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Hausa is a lingua franca throughout much of West
Africa, and serves this function in Northern Nigeria as well, particularly amongst the Muslim population. Nigerian
Pidgin English, often known simply as 'Pidgin' or 'Broken' (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with
varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The Pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the
Niger Delta Regions, predominately in Warri, Sapele, Port-Harcourt, Agenebode, Benin City etc. The Yoruba language
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has the most varied forms and dialects. This variation is usually based on the different towns or as it were Kingdoms
that existed before the advent of Europeans. Foreign minorities speak their own languages aside from English and/or
major native languages as their second languages.
It did not take long before the official adoption of English led to its adaptation. Most adaptation in NE, as in other New
Englishes, relates to vocabulary, in the form of new words (borrowings or loanwords – from several hundred language
sources, coinages), word-formations (intralingual compounding, affixation, functional conversion, analogical
derivation or back-formation, acronyms), word-meanings, semantic extension and narrowing, semantic shift,
translation equivalent, ellipsis, collocations and idiomatic phrases.
Pronunciation
Vowel contrasts are limited, and there is usually no distinction between cheap and chip, pool and pull, and
caught, court, and cot.
NE is non-rhotic, thus ten and turn are homophones. Furthermore, it is largely syllable timed rather than stresstimed. This is perhaps the main cause of intelligibility difficulties for native speakers. Although RP is no longer the
norm for the media, it continues to have prestige and to influence pronunciation.
The pronunciation of consonants tends to differ across the country. Thin and then tend to be ‘tin’ and ‘den’ in
Igbo- and Yoruba-influenced English, and ‘sin and ‘zen’ in Hausa-influenced English.
Words ending in -mb – bomb, climb, plumb, etc. – may be pronounced with a final /b/. Similarly, words ending in ng – ring, long, bang, etc. – may be pronounced with a final /ŋg/, that is, with a voiced /g/.
There is a tendency for final consonants clusters to be reduced: last /las/, passed /pas/.
There is a tendency for final voiced consonants to be devoiced: proud /praut/, robe /rop/.
A number of words have stress differences from SE: congratuláte, mainténance, investigáte, recogníze, madám,
súccess.
Grammar
Where the grammar of NE differs from that of other varieties of English, this is often (but not always) due to influence
from indigenous languages. This influence is most marked in less educated and more informal styles. Typical NE
grammatical forms include the following:
Pluralization of non-count nouns: I had only fruits to eat; I am grateful for your many advices; I lost all my
furnitures.
Definite articles are sometimes used as if the rules of SE have been reversed: Lorry was overcrowded; What do
you think of the Structuralism?
The use of prepositions can differ from UK and US norms: He came to my office by four o’clock (= at four o’clock);
She is the best teacher for our school (= in our school).
Phrasal verbs include cope up (with), as in: He couldn’t cope up with any more money worries. There are also
constructions in which the phrasal verb particle is dropped: Pick me at the corner (no up).
No distinction between the reflexive pronoun themselves and the reciprocal pronoun each other: They like
themselves (‘They like each other’).
Often the distinctiveness of Nigerian verbs in use consists of unusual auxiliaries applied to conventional verbs. Some
of these are as follows:
o done: he done go (he went);
o got: the thing got spoiled; the water got finished;
o has: he has go (he went; it is just imperfect learning, not standard);
o use to: he use to come here (he comes here regularly; it is a back-formation from used to).
Vocabulary
Many differences in vocabulary between NE and other varieties of English involve extensions or alterations to the
semantic or grammatical function of English words. Others reflect usages of equivalent words from indigenous
languages, while still others are innovations.
Relexicalisation
men of the underworld, a metaphor which refers to criminals;
area boys (or the hyphenated version, area-boys), also referring to criminals;
hotel in NE is commonly applied to bars and drinking places that serve food but may have no lodging and hotel in the SE
sense is guest hotel.
Borrowings
danshiki = from Hausa: ‘male gown’;
oga = from Yoruba: ‘master, boss’, term of respect often used partly ironically;
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obanje = from Igbo: ‘spirit child’.
Loan-translation from local languages
to have long legs = a metaphoric expression meaning ‘to exert influence’: He gained his position through long-leg.
to throw water = a metaphor, having a euphemistic function, that means ‘to offer a bribe’.
to buy the market = ‘to buy goods’, as in These menials began to bargain to buy the market for their masters.
decampee = referred to a person who moves to another political party. It is formed adding the suffix –ee to the verb to
decamp = lit. in SE to leave a place suddenly, often secretly (from French décamper = dé-, expressing removal, + camp
camp). It is derived in analogy with other English forms, such as arrangee (often used to mean someone employed in
illegal currency deals), or deportee (person deported from a country).
senior = ‘elder’, as in senior brother, senior sister, senior wife (it refers to the eldest wife in a polygamous marriage)
and, by conversion or zero-derivation, the verb to senior = ‘to be older than’: He seniors me.
belgian, a good quality second-hand item; also belgium, the practice of importing second-hand cars and now other used
goods from Belgium: One of my friends bought a big belgium fridge for only N10,000,000.
the presence of Citroën and Volkswagen cars has led to the creative coining of new words, formed by blending process,
footroën and footwagen. They had to do part of the journey by footroën simply means they had to walk some of the way.
A nice example of how local culture and traditions can create new words is illustrated by the verbs enstool and enskin.
These clearly derive from the verb ‘enthrone’, but as some tribes install their chief on a stool and others clothe him in
an animal skin, the verbs enstool (with its derivatives, by affixation, destool ‘to overthrow a chief’, enstoolment,
destoolment) and enskin have been created. These words also occur in Ghanaian English.
bukateria, a street restaurant, humorous extension of buka, Hausa word for street restaurant. It’s a humorous blend of
buka + cafeteria.
amount = usually an ellipsis for ‘amount of money’ but occasionally applied to other things previously referred to: he
gave me some amount, ‘he gave me some money’.
balance = change (for purchase): Give me my balance; by conversion to balance = to give change: I will balance you fifty
Naira, ‘I must give you fifty Naira change’
chop = lit. ‘to eat’, can you chop rice? ‘do you eat rice?’. The figurative meaning of to chop is ‘to embezzle government
money’: He has chopped too much money.
perm sec = a clipped form of ‘permanent secretary’, i.e. the head of a government parastatal or ministry.
JAMB = an acronym for Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, a body that conducts entrance
examinations into Nigerian higher institutions. It is pronounced jam: I want to do jam. By back-formation,
there is the noun jambite, frequently used in universities to refer to first year students who have just been
admitted into universities after passing the UME (University Matriculation Examination).
vendor = a lexical item which is narrowed to a specific meaning in Nigerian usage of English. This word,
derived from the verb to vend + the agentive suffix –or, in NE denotes a person, usually a teenager or
sometimes an older person who sells newspapers and magazines either by hawking them around or by
staying in a place.
Essential Bibliography
Awonusi, Victor O, 1994: “The Americanization of Nigerian English”, World Englishes, 13:1, 75-82.
Bamiro, Edmund O., 1994: “Lexico-semantic variation in Nigerian English”, World Englishes, 13:1, 47–60.
______ 2006, “The politics of code-switching: English vs Nigerian languages”, World Englishes, 25:1, 25-35.
Castorina, Giuseppe G., 2006: “Politiche linguistiche a confronto: Europa e alcuni Paesi multilingui dell’Africa anglofona”, in Linda
Lombardo (ed.), The Role of Languages in an Enlarged Europe. Papers from the European Conference, Rome, Luiss University Press.
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Crystal, David, 2003 (1 ed. 1997): English as a Global Language, Cambridge, CUP.
Igboanusi, Herbert, 2002: A Dictionary of Nigerian English Usage, Ibadan, Enicrownfit.
______ 2003: “Knowledge, use, and attitudes towards Americanisms in Nigerian English”, World Englishes, 22:4, 599-604.
Igboanusi, Herbert and Lothar Peter, 2oo5: Languages in Competition. The Struggle for Supremacy Among Nigeria’s Major Languages,
English and Pidgin, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang.
McArthur, Tom, 2003: Oxford Guide to World English, Oxford, OUP.
Peter, Lothar and Hans-Georg Wolf, 2007: “A comparison of the varieties of West African Pidgin English”, World Englishes, 26:1, 3-21.
Simire, G. O. 2003: “Developing and Promoting Multilingualism in Public Life and Society in Nigeria”, Language, Culture and Curriculum,
16:2, 231-243.
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Trudgill, Peter and Jean, Hannah, 2002, International English, A guide to varieties of Standard English, 4 edition, London, Arnold.
Vaccarelli, Francesca, 2010: “English in West Africa: The Case of Nigeria”, in O. Palusci (ed.), English but not quite the same. Locating
linguistic diversity in the XXI century, Trento, Uni-Service.
Webb Vic and Kembo-Sure (eds), 2000: African Voices: An Introduction to the Languages and Linguistics of Africa, Cape Town, OUP
Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd.