English is the lingua franca in Nigeria, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easy for me to communicate with Nigerians. Sometimes I have a clear understanding of what someone says to me; sometimes it takes me a few tries to get what they say; and sometimes I have absolutely no idea what they are saying. The same goes for their comprehension of my American English.
The first difference between my English and theirs is the accent. What I hear as their accent comes from the legacy of the British, who first brought English to Nigeria, and Nigerian accents, since most people speak Yoruba, Igbo,or Hausa before English. When I can’t understand what someone is saying, even after they repeat it several times, I ask them to spell it. “Pote Ah Cote" is the city Port Harcourt, in the Niger Delta;“peppay soup” is pepper soup, and “foo-whale” is fuel, as in the substance you put in your car.
Second, Nigerians use some English words differently than we do. My favorite is “sorry.” When someone sneezes, the response is “sorry,” instead of “bless you.” The same goes for when someone trips, drops something, or does anything else by accident. Nigerians mean to express their condolence that something unpleasant happened to you but I hear “sorry” as an apology. I always think, “Why are you apologizing? I sneezed, not you,” and “Why are you apologizing because I fell? Did you trip me?”
Finally, what Nigerians are often speaking is Pidgin English, not English as I know it. Pidgin English sounds like an entirely different language to me. Whenever I want to say something to the cook or nanny or gateman at my house, I bring one of my host siblings to translate between my American English and their Pidgin English. When we try to communicate directly, we just start laughing. Pidgin English has a totally different cadence, accent, and use of vocabulary than American English. For example, “please” is “abeg” and at the market yesterday, our driver asked, “Chicken no dey?” meaning “Is there no chicken here?”
The one thing that has given us endless amusement is the Nigerian equivalent of “uh-huh.” It’s used to confirm what someone is saying, or to question it, depending on the emphasis. It sounds like a loud, often nasal-sounding combination of “uh-huh” and “ah-hah” and it can be hilarious when some people say it! (I know it’s not to sensitive of us to laugh at Nigerian accents, but they get a kick out of our accents too, I know.)
