Nigerian English is the variety of English that has been used in the region of the Niger, West Africa, for purposes of trade since at least the 18th century, at missions since the 19th century, and increasingly in education, administration, the media, and the 20th-century workplace, especially since the formation by the British of a unified Nigeria in 1914. The existence of a single Nigerian English continues to be debated and disputed within the country, in which there is a spectrum of usage from West African Pidgin English through varieties influenced by local languages, such as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba, to a general usage similar to other English-speaking West African countries. All varieties do not pronounce r in words such as art, door, and worker. There is a tendency toward full vowels in all syllables (e.g., seven pronounced "seh-ven," not "sev'n"). There is often no distinction between words like chip and cheap and ones like caught, cot, and court. In grammar, there is a tendency toward pluralizing nouns that are singular in Standard English (as in I gave them some advices) and the pronoun themselves is often used instead of one another (as in That couple really love themselves). Distinctive vocabulary includes borrowings and loan translations from local languages, e.g., danshiki from Hausa ("a gown worn by men") and to throw water ("to offer a bribe"). |
