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The Nigerian English is a variety of the English language spoken specially by Nigerians, one thing I am proud of at the moment is the recognition given to this type of English that is influence by linguistic and cultural heritage of the country. It would interest you to know that some Nigerian English that have popular enough have been incorporated into the international English dictionary, this means that our specific form of language that enables communication amongst every member of the country is being accepted worldwide. The Nigerian English is not one that is produced in isolation rather it consists of the three ethnic groups languages in Nigeria that is Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba.
I remember back in school I attended a seminar organized by the English department professors Who spoke about the genuity of the Nigerian English. The emphasize the point that the Nigerian English is here to stay and it has become a variable means of communication that includes every member of the society to communicate effectively and understandably. We were colonized by the british and have been made to adopt the English language as our official language but this was not entirely possible because our first backgrounds and first language happened to be our traditional native language, hence the fact that we are first speakers of our traditional language makes it difficult to fully articulate the British English, this is why we have a mixture of Igbo Yoruba and hausa, as words, phrases, and grammatical structures are incorporated from them.
Nigerian English is quite interesting and some of such words are;
Okada; which means bike or motorcycle used for transportation
Buka; a local restaurant where people eat local dishes
Chop; to eat
Barbing salon; a place where people cut their hair
There are many more that were incorporated into the oxford dictionary.
Personally, I see nigerian English as one that tends to include every person from whatever cultural background they hail from. It has served as a bridge between two worlds which is Nigeria and the global audience. People understand themselves better and communicate more because not everyone has the same level of education to assimilate the standard British English. I view of this, linguistic diversity is enhance as there is mixture from different cultural background which is known as code mixing and code switching, this be be about switch English and a native language or blending of both languages.
This variety of English is one that is being studied on a daily basis by Nigerians and scholars abroad, this is so because new words are being generated frequently. As Nigerians who are proud of their heritages are encouraged not to be intimidated by standardized phonetics but focus on speaking proper English as they can. We should be proud of our heritage,language and linguistic variations be this is solidly the effect of Nigerian language as 9ur first language, it is evident that there would be interference with the English language.
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