Nigerian English words have recently been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), but there is still a debate in the country about what constitutes proper English, as the BBC’s Nduka Orjinmo writes from Lagos.
“Come to an all-night prayer vigil to welcome the ember months,” read a text from my mother.
It was an August ritual she had reminded me about severally.
“I have something to do next tomorrow,” I texted back from the barbing salon.
“You sef,” came her instant reply, half-irritated, half-rebuking.
What I considered to be a conversation in perfect English between my mother and me would have been regarded as wrong by the self-appointed language police here.
But now I have something with which I can defend myself, thanks to the OED, which calls itself “the definitive record of the English language”.
The Oxford lexicographers have updated the dictionary with 29 Nigerian words, recognising the “unique and distinctive contribution to English as a global language” of Africa’s most populous country.
