Nigerian Accents and Dialects (Pidgin English and Yoruba)

Nigeria consists of about 300 languages; this factor has gone a long way to distinguish particular accents and dialects from one another.

 Despite the multi-cultural state of the nation, Nigerians can communicate freely in “Pidgin English” rather than using the more business-like English language.  The dialect can sometimes be termed as “Broken English”.

The derivation of this name is due to the scrambling of Standard English, it consists of both English language and additional Nigerian words; to form this entirely different language.

 Questions such as “where do you think you are going, mate?!” could be translated as “Oga! Or my guy! (depending on the gender involved) where you tink (think) say you dey (they) go?!”  Pidgin English has different pronunciations from the Basic English language. Words containing ‘th’ are usually pronounced either without the letter ‘h’ or as letter “d” to avoid sounding “posh”. For instance, a question like: “how did the thing work; would be pronounced as “how did “d” “ting” work?”

Another dominant dialect in Nigeria comes from the “Yoruba’s” who are located in the south west of the country.  A typical Yoruba indigene either includes the letter ‘h’ unnecessarily or does not use them at all in sentences. An example of this in a sentence is:  I ope (hope) you understood the hessay (essay).