In Nigeria, they are a ‘result of Nigeria not being located at the centre of the evolution of a language, which causes one to blissfully be unaware of current trends and shifts in meaning and usage’ as explains Kperogi (2015).
These archaisms are expressions that derive from Old English and are outdated in any other variety of English. Different from the former example, by deconstructing the word from its main noun which is ‘odour’ the standard English speaker of today can guess the meaning of the word. Odoriferous is another expression of the late Middle English and of Latin origin and it means unpleasant smell. Another example of the usage of old-fashioned British expressions is the word ‘odoriferous’ used by Obahiagbo. To the standard English speaker of the 21 st century this word is rather unknown. This expression is from the mid 17 th century and is a reduplication of the noun crank meaning elaborate detail or detail. For example, at the beginning of the interview when he is asked to explain what he thinks is happening he uses the word ‘crinkum-crankum’ in his sentence. He uses a lot of Old and Middle English expressions that are no longer used today by standard English speakers. The main linguistic features one notices from Obahiagbo’s interview is how heavily he relies on old British English norms. The extract of the interview that will be used for this close reading is titled ‘Rivers crisis: These Issues Are Bringing Calamitous End for Nigeria’.
#Nigerian pidgin english examples tv#
This interview was featured on the Sunrise TV Channel and aired (on YouTube) on July 27 th, 2013. To illustrate these four linguistics features I will closely analyse an extract from a televised interview with Patrick Obahiagbo, the Chief of Staff to the Edo State Governor. According to him Nigerian English is based on four fundamental concepts: The linguistic features and characteristics of Nigerian English are so unique to Nigerian culture that Kperogi (2015) argues that Nigeran English should be considered as a variety of its own. As Farooq Kperogi states ‘Nigerian English has not yet been purposively standardized’ (Kperogi,2015). Nonetheless, it is still difficult to define Nigerian English as it is often dismissed as merely being a form of ‘bad English’ and thus not a variety of the English language like American English. Through its contact with other native languages Nigerian English has become a distinctive variety of the English language. Nigerian English on the other spectrum is only used in politics, in an educational setting and in the media. Nigerian Pidgin is a form of colloquial English and is the most spoken variety amongst Nigerians especially amongst natives who live in the villages. Nigerian English, also known as Nigerian Standard English, is the most widely spoken African variety of English, not to be mistaken with Nigerian Pidgin which is used as a lingua franca in the country. Through British colonialism the English language became an integral part of the country and is today spoken by approximately 20% of the population. Nigeria, like many other African countries, has a multilingual landscape the number of languages spoken in Nigeria today is estimated to be between 500 and 600 languages.
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