No Two Englishes are the Same

Sorry that it has been so long since I last posted. I have been busy and traveling. Today I’m going to discuss the nuances of the English language, specifically differences between American English and Nigerian English. For those who are unfamiliar with Nigeria, English is the official language of the country. In theory, then, if I speak English in Nigeria people should be able to understand me. That is not always the case.

The main issue is my accent and the hyper speed at which I am accustomed to speaking. I know I talk fast. Even my own family members tell me that I talk too fast for them to understand sometimes. Yes, I am speaking Igbo here in Igboland, of course, but I am not fluent in Igbo and many people want to speak English with me anyway. The stories of my Igbo-speaking will be the subject of a separate blog post. For now I will focus on the tale of two Englishes.

English is spoken in many places around the world, thanks to British colonialism and American modern imperialism. That’s not a surprise, but what might surprise you is how different English can be in different places. For example, I watched this YouTube video once in which someone with a camera went around London asking young people to give an impersonation of Americans. Almost all of the British youth repeated the phrases, “like, yeah totally” and “dude, I like surfing.” Americans DO say “like” a lot – probably too much. That is an American English idiom I think.

So now I am here in Nigeria. I’ve been here for seven weeks. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out some of the Nigerian English idioms. I am not sure if any of these are specific to a certain region of Nigeria or a certain language-group like Igbo speakers, but I have heard these phrases in Lagos and various parts of eastern Nigeria. Let me give you some examples.

When I first arrived in the city of Enugu I met two young people that are about my age (yes, I am still young but I will be 26 this week so I somehow feel old). These two, Kemsy and Joshua, are now my good friends. I noticed that they both texted me similar phrases on WhatsApp when I was making plans to hang out with them. One of our earlier WhatsApp conversation went something like this:

Me: “Will you be able to go with me to the market this afternoon?”

Kemsy: “I am not sure. I have to check my schedule. I would let you know.”

I thought to myself, “okay…you would let me know if…what?” In American English “would” is used as a conditional verb, meaning that something is contingent upon something else. Would is usually used in an “if-then” situation. For example, “If I had the money, I WOULD buy it.” Bear with me those of you who find grammar confusing or annoying. My first degree was in English so you should expect this grammar lesson from me.

In the context of the WhatsApp message with my friend, Kemsy used “would” where Americans use “will.” It took me a moment to realize that Kemsy was telling me, “I will let you know.” I thought maybe this is just how she texts and I let it go. Then a couple of days later I had a similar WhatsApp conversation with Joshua. I asked if he was able to take me to a bar later that day, and he replied with something like, “Yes, I would be able to.” Again, I asked in my head, “You would be able to…if what?” But then he messaged me right after, adding, “Let us go at 7 pm.” This context clue allowed me to discern that Joshua used “would” in the same way Kemsy did, to mean “will” in American terms. I have since heard and seen other people in Enugu and Ogidi say or text “would” instead of “will.” I don’t know why a verb is used as the conditional tense in American English but as the future tense in Nigerian English. I don’t know if this stems from British English (for those who don’t know, Nigeria was a British colony until 1960…Lagos was a British colony since the 1860s, whereas other parts of Nigeria came under colonial jurisdiction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century).

Obviously once I realized the would-will nuance, it was easy for me to communicate with and understand my friends. But there are other differences – not grammar-based but diction-based – that have caused some confusion and in some cases embarrassment. In Nigeria, the back part of the car where you put luggage is called the “boot.” We call it the “trunk.” In Nigeria when someone calls you on the phone, you “pick” or you “don’t pick.” In America, you “pick up” or you “miss the call.” Similarly, in Nigeria if I call a taxi driver to come pick me up, I ask him to “pick me.” Adding “up” after pick is unnecessary and strange-sounding in Nigerian English.

When you need assistance from a hotel employee, but the employee needs to go take care of something first and will be back soon, the employee will tell you, “I’m coming.” It could be 15 minutes before the person actually comes back. In the U.S., in that same situation, the employee would say, “I will be back soon,” or “I have to go out for a few minutes but I will come back,” or sometimes just, “I’m coming back.” In the U.S., “coming” is something you shout as you are approaching the door because someone is knocking incessantly and you want the person to know that they should stop knocking because they have been heard and you are about to open the door. Saying “I’m coming” in the U.S. means you are just about to do something. It’s something you say as you are walking TOWARD the place you say you are coming to. But in Nigeria, it is what you say as you are walking AWAY from the place you say you are coming to (meaning you are leaving but you are coming back…sometimes right away, sometimes 30 minutes later). Like it is with picking (the “up” is dropped), when you are leaving and want to tell others that you are coming back, you drop the “back.” The first time someone told me she was coming, as she was literally walking away from me, made me very confused. I thought, “no, you’re not coming. You are leaving. You just walked past me and you continue to walk away from me.” I figured out the “coming” and “picking” the first time I was in Nigeria in 2015. Even so, it still feels weird for me to tell someone that I am coming as I walk out of the room or to ask my driver to come pick me from my friend’s house rather than pick me up.

Most of these nuances in word choice are easy enough to pick [up] and people understand me when I unconsciously revert to American English terms. But sometimes the American and the Nigerian English words for something are different enough that you don’t want to mix them up. For example, in America, the article of clothing that we wear to cover each of your legs are pants. Pants is the most generic form and I use it more than using the specific terms: jeans, yogas, sweats, leggings, khakis, etc. They are all pants and if I say pants people in the U.S. know what I mean. But, what Americans call “pants,” Nigerians call “trousers.” I definitely think this is a British influence. I don’t know anyone in the U.S. under the age of 75 that says trousers. To me it sounds as old as “britches/breeches” and even though I know there is a difference, when I hear the word trousers, this is what comes to mind.

So we say “pants,” Nigerians say “trousers.” What no one told me, though, was that Nigerians call underwear “pants.” So when I was out with friends and I saw a man who was wearing very nice trousers made of Ankara fabric, I said that I liked his pants. People looked at me strangely. I thought, “WHAT? They are nice pants. Can I not give a compliment?” Then someone was like, “Oh! his trousers?” I later figured out that pants are underwear and it would be pretty weird to hear the little white girl say that she liked some old man’s underwear. So, yes, Nigerian English is different than American English.