Danfo, Tokunbo, Okada: Oxford Includes “Nigerian English” For The First Time Into The Dictionary (See Full List)

My English-speaking is rooted in a Nigerian experience and not in a British or American or Australian one. I have taken ownership of English.

This is how acclaimed Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes her relationship with English, the language which she uses in her writing, and which millions of her fellow Nigerians use in their daily communication.

By taking ownership of English and using it as their own medium of expression, Nigerians have made, and are continuing to make, a unique and distinctive contribution to English as a global language.

The Oxford English Dictionary thus highlights our contributions in this month’s issue as a number of Nigerian English words make it into the dictionary for the first time.

The majority of these new additions are either borrowings from Nigerian languages, or unique Nigerian coinages that have only begun to be used in English in the second half of the twentieth century, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.

See a list of the words below:

• agric, adj. & n.
• barbing salon, n.
• buka, n.
• bukateria, n.
• chop, v./6
• chop-chop, n./2
• danfo, n.
• to eat money, in eat, v.
• ember months, n.
• flag-off, n.
• to flag off in flag, v.
• gist, n./3
• gist, v./2
• guber, adj.
• Kannywood, n.
• K-leg, n.
• mama put, n.
• next tomorrow, n. & adv.
• non-indigene, adj. & n.
• okada, n.
• to put to bed, in put, v.
• qualitative, adj.
• to rub minds (together) in rub, v./1
• sef, adv.
• send-forth, n.
• severally, adv.
• tokunbo, adj.
• zone, v.
• zoning, n.