By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Exclamatory expressions are abrupt, emphatic utterances that help us convey emotions of joy, sadness, admi...
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Exclamatory expressions are abrupt, emphatic
utterances that help us convey emotions of joy, sadness, admiration, anger,
surprise, sympathy, disappointment, disgust, etc. Common Standard English
exclamatory expressions are “Congratulations!” “Well done!” “Bravo!” “How
sweet!” “What a pity!” “Awww!” “What a shame!” “What nonsense!” “How
disgusting!” “To hell with you!” “Damn
you!” “Thank goodness!” “Good gracious!” “Oh my God!” etc.
While Nigerian English users are familiar with and,
in fact, deploy most of the everyday exclamatory expressions in Standard
English, they also use a unique set of exclamatory expressions in their
quotidian communicative endeavors that won’t be intelligible to most people who
speak only Standard English. Some of the expressions are the result of the
relexicalization of existing English words. Others are direct translations from
native Nigerian languages. Still others are untranslated— and
untranslatable—Nigerian interjections. See below my top favorite Nigerian
exclamations:
1.
“At all!” This expression is used in
Nigerian English to indicate emphatic denial. If, for instance, you asked a
Nigerian if he knew someone who had been convicted of a crime and he wanted to
disclaim the remotest association with the criminal, he would say something
like: “Ah, at all o! I don’t know him!” The expression is sometimes rendered as
“at all at all,” especially in humorous contexts and in Nigerian Pidgin
English. It’s certainly a distortion of the Standard English phrase “not at
all,” which has two conventional uses: to indicate emphatic denial (in the
class of the Nigerian “at all at all o!”) and a polite response to expression
of gratitude (synonymous with phrases like “you’re welcome,” “it’s my
pleasure,” “not a problem,” etc. In Standard English “at all” often just means
“in any way,” as in “he could not see at all.”
2.
“Eiyaah!” In Nigerian English—and in many Nigeria languages— this
is the commonest interjectory expression of pity, sadness, and other kinds of
soft emotions. It is often said where native English speakers would say “it’s
such a pity!”
3.
“Chei!” This interjection is used to express disbelief, or
deep admiration tempered with a dose of disbelief. I see parallels between it
and the native English “Oh my God!” although it’s not an exact semantic
parallel. I was surprised to discover that the word also appears in American
youth slang. The Urban Dictionary, a user-generated dictionary of (American)
slang terms, defines “chei” (which it also renders as “cheis) as “A word used
in a moment of excitement or happiness.” That’s very close to the word’s
meaning in Nigeria. I personally have never heard anyone say “chei” or “cheis”
in America, but then, I don’t hang around the kinds of people who use it here.
4.
“God forbid (bad thing)!” This is the default exclamatory
expression to show impassioned, emphatic rejection of that which is considered
unacceptably objectionable or detestable. In Standard English “God forbid” is
also used to express the wish that something never happens, as in “If, God
forbid, his children die before him, he would take his own life.” It is also
used in Standard English to express the sentiment that someone would never do
something, as in “God forbid that I would marry my own sister.”
So how is the Standard English usage of “God forbid”
different from the Nigerian English usage of it? Well, they are different in at
least two respects. One, in Standard English, as you can see from the examples
above, “God forbid” is neither a standalone expression nor an exclamation. It’s
just an idiomatic phrase. Second, native speakers don’t add “bad thing” to “God
forbid.” In any case, “God forbid bad thing” is ungrammatical. Here are more
grammatical alternatives to it: “God, forbid a bad thing from happening,” “God
should forbid a bad thing from happening,” God forbid that a thing should
happen.” But even these more grammatical alternatives make no sense in
idiomatic English.
5.
“Haba!” This exclamation of astonishment or disappointment
that has crept into Standard Nigerian English seems to me to be native to the
Hausa language. But a British linguist by the name of Roger Blench observed
that “Habahaba! was a common expression of joking amazement in the US in the
1940s,” and wonders if there is any relationship between the Nigerian “haba!”
and the obsolete American English “habahaba!” in light of the phono-semantic
similarities between both expressions.
My sense is that the similarities are no more than a
happy coincidence. Until fairly recently, “haba!” wasn’t widespread in Nigerian
English. It was at best a northern Nigerian exclamatory expression. Most
importantly, 1940s America had no direct or indirect cultural influence on
Nigeria—not least northern Nigeria—that I am aware of. The late Dr. Nnamdi
Azikiwe, the first Nigerian to ever study in the United States and who brought
early influences of American English into Nigeria through his political and
journalistic career, had left America when “habahaba!” was in vogue. He
graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the historically black Lincoln
University in 1930, earned a master’s degree from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1933, and another master’s degree from Columbia University in
1934. He returned to Ghana—and later Nigeria—in the mid-1930s. So it’s hard to
account for the linguistic migration and mutation of the American “habahaba!”
to the Nigerian “haba!”
6.
“How can?” This expression, which seems to me to be limited in
popularity to eastern Nigeria, is used to express disbelief. It appears to be
the shortening of “how can that be?” meaning “how is that even possible?” I
have always wondered why the expression is very popular with Igbos. Is it,
perhaps, a direct translation from Igbo rather than the short form of “how can
that be?”
7.
“Have it!” When Nigerians give something to someone, they
almost always say, “have it!” or “take it!” Native speakers certainly won’t
relate to this. Americans say “here you go!” or “there you go!” In British
English, according David Jowitt, it’s common to say “here you are!” or “there
you are!”
8.
“Imagine!” The Standard English equivalents for this
exclamatory expression of surprise or disbelief are “can you imagine that?” “imagine
that!” or “fancy that!”
9.
“Mtchewww!!!” or Mscheeeeeeew!!!” Thanks to the vibrant
Nigerian social media scene, there are several phonetic spellings of this sound,
which Nigerians let out to express utter disgust or contempt or anger.
Nigerians call this “hissing,” but in his book Nigerian English: An Introduction, David Jowitt writes: “In
Nigerian culture there is a sound produced by protruding the lips and drawing
air inwards noisily, which expresses disapproval or derision, and this is
called chissing, while what [Standard British English] calls ‘hissing,’ i.e.,
making the sibilant sound, the air forced through the teeth, is used in Nigeria
to attract someone’s attention from a distance. There is no [Standard English]
word that expresses the Nigerian sign of disapproval; ‘wince’ perhaps comes
nearest to it.”
In other words, what Nigerians call “hissing” is
only a lexical appropriation; it is not recognizable to native English speakers
because they neither produce that kind of sound nor have a name for it. Heck,
other Africans I have met can’t “hiss” even if their life depends on it.
10.
“No wonder!” This expression is used to express
surprise—or lack thereof— in Nigerian English. It performs the same function in
Standard English, except that it’s not a standalone expression in Standard English;
it’s often part of a sentence. Look at these examples: “No
wonder the baby is crying. She's wet.” “It's no wonder that plant died. You
watered it too much.”
To
be concluded next week
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