I have just started reading @farooqkperogi 's 2010 "Divided by a Common Language: A Comparison of Nigerian, American and British English", and it is as educative as it is hilarious!
@farooqkperogi It was published "In: Multiculturalism in the Age of the Mosaic Editor: Michael Ọladẹjọ Afọláyan, pp 53-63", and I'd share the parts I find quite interesting...
@farooqkperogi "no Nigerian who was educated at home, including those who deride Nigerian English, can help writing and speaking English in ways that reflect their sociolinguistic singularities. It is a legitimate national variety that has evolved, over several decades..." (54)
@farooqkperogi ... I had an experience yesterday with someone who had pronounced "excuse" with a very clear "Nigerian-dialectal-accent" just immediately after he pronounced "advert" with the 'most superb' "British-English" he could muster... and this could be any Nigerian in his shoes...
@farooqkperogi "any language that has the cheek to leave its primordial shores and encroach on the territory of other people should learn to come to terms with the inevitable reality that it would be domesticated (Achebe, 1997; Ohaeto, 1997" (54)
@farooqkperogi "So Nigerians either translate their local languages to take care of this lack, or they appropriate existing English words and phrases and imbue them with meanings that serve their communicative purposes" (54)
@farooqkperogi "the word “flash”— and its inflections “flashing” and “flasher”—in the vocabulary of Nigerian mobile telephony. Neither American English nor British English—nor, for that matter, any other variety of English in the world— uses these words the way Nigerians do" (55)
@farooqkperogi "The closest semantic equivalent in both British and American English to what Nigerians call “flashing” is “buzz"" (55)
@farooqkperogi "a friend who had “buzzed” my phone incessantly jokingly said he was a “professional flasher”! He had no idea what a “flasher”— or, even worse, a “professional flasher”— meant in standard American and British English until I told him. He was, of course, shocked. " (55)
@farooqkperogi "He asked if he could use the word “buzzer” since I said “buzz” is the closest word that describes the sense Nigerians convey when they say we “flash” someone’s phone. But buzzer is just another word for a doorbell" (55)
@farooqkperogi "Similarly, the use of the phrase “well done” as a form of salutation for someone who is working is peculiarly Nigerian... It is not part of the cultural repertoire of people in the West to reserve a special form of salutation for people who are working" (55-56)
