Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,143,185 members, 7,780,284 topics. Date: Thursday, 28 March 2024 at 11:44 AM

Check Out Your Pronunciation Errors Here!You May Be Found Wanting - Literature - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Entertainment / Literature / Check Out Your Pronunciation Errors Here!You May Be Found Wanting (1110 Views)

Correct Your Common Pronunciation Errors HERE II / Correct Your Common Pronunciation Errors HERE / Common Grammatical Errors We Make In Our Everyday English (2) (3) (4)

(1) (Reply)

Check Out Your Pronunciation Errors Here!You May Be Found Wanting by U09ce: 11:07am On Mar 31, 2013
(For part one of the series, click here
For part two, click here
For part three, click here)
I have way more words on my list of common
words Nigerians mispronounce than I am
inclined to write here. Maybe I should consider
writing a layman’s Dictionary of Nigerian
English Pronunciation since I am not a trained
phonologist.
In today’s edition, I conclude with bonus words
and suggestions from my readers. The
suggestions readers sent to me were many. I
cannot capture all of them here.

1. Annihilate. This word is popularly
pronounced “ani-hi-leyt” in Nigerian English.
Native speakers pronounce it “anai-ileyt.” Note
that the “h” is silent.

2. Adjacent: Almost everyone I know in Nigeria
pronounces this word like “aja-sent.” Native
speakers pronounce it “ajey-sent.”

3. Bouquet. This French loanword is
pronounced either like “bow-kei” or “biu-kei,”
but many Nigerians pronounce it “bu-kwet.”

4. Excited. The mispronunciation of this word
as “eg-zai-ted” isn’t a national trend. It
appears to be restricted to southwestern
Nigeria, but I have heard several people outside
the region say “eg-zai-ted” instead of “ik-sai-
tid.”

5. February. A reader asked me to include this
word, but I initially hesitated because the word
has different acceptable native-speaker
pronunciations. Then it occurred to me that a
broad swath of Nigerians pronounce it in ways
that are different from the various variants in
native-speaker pronunciations. Nigerians tend
to pronounce this word as “fe-bwa-ri.” There
are two dominant native-speaker
pronunciations of this word. One is “fe-bru-ari,”
which appears to be the most socially favored
in Britain and northern United States. In the
American south I hear people say “fe-biu-ari.”
They, too, kind of "swallow" the "r."

6. Fork. Nigerians used to pronounce this word
like native British English speakers do, that is,
they used to pronounce it “fo:k”— with a long
“o” sound. But I hear that teachers in primary
and secondary schools in Nigeria now teach
students to pronounce it “fe:k.” Well, no one
pronounces “fork” that way anywhere in the
world. Pronouncing fork “fek” makes you
sound like a retarded idiot with speech
impediments.

6. Garage. Nigerians universally pronounce this
word as “ga-reyj,” but it is pronounced “ga-
raaj” or ga-raazh” by native speakers.

7. Itinerary. Many Nigerians “swallow” the
middle consonants in the word to produce
something like “ai-ti-nari.” Native speakers
articulate all the consonants in the word to
have something like “ai-ti-nu-rari.”

8. Nigeria. It is perhaps the biggest irony of
our “nationhood” that almost no Nigerian
pronounces the name of our country
“correctly.” Last year, I’d planned to write an
article on the imperative to change Nigeria’s
name to something other than Nigeria, and part
of the argument I wanted to advance was that
the name “Nigeria” is so foreign to us that
almost no Nigerian pronounces it correctly. One
of my readers brought this to my attention
again three weeks ago. He pointed out that
even President Goodluck Jonathan doesn't
pronounce Nigeria correctly. Well, there are
regional and ethnic variations in the way
"Nigeria" is pronounced in Nigeria. While Hausa
people pronounce Nigeria “naa-je-riya,” the rest
of the country pronounces it like “nan-ji-ria.”
Many language groups in southern and central
Nigeria that don’t have the “j” sound in their
languages either pronounce it “nan-ye-ria” or
“nan-ge-ria.” The British people who imposed
the name on us pronounce it “nai-jee-ree-a.” So
do Americans and other native English
speakers.

9. Pariah. This word, which came to the
English language by way of India, entered the
active idiolect of Nigerians during the late
General Sani Abacha’s regime after the print
media ceaselessly described Nigeria as a
“pariah nation.” But it seems like nobody
bothered to find out how the word is
“properly” pronounced. So most of us
pronounced it like “pa-riya.” But native
speakers pronounce it something like “pa-rai-
a.”

10. Pizza. I never ate pizza when I grew up in
Nigeria. I had no idea what it was and I had no
clue how it was pronounced. Nor did I care.
But gastronomic globalization (as I’ve chosen to
call the internationalization of otherwise
provincial foods) is causing pizza to become a
culinary alternative in Nigeria. The problem is,
many Nigerians—at least those I related with in
my recent trip to Nigeria—pronounce this
(Americanized) Italian dish in ways that make
it sound almost unrecognizable to the people
who eat it. Nigerians pronounce it “pi-za.” I
heard a young girl at a high-end Abuja
restaurant pronounce it “pisa.” It almost
sounded like “pisser,” that is, a person who
urinates! Well, the people to whom the food is
original pronounce it “peet- sa.”

11. Rendezvous. Many readers asked me to
highlight this word. I personally don’t think
Nigerians mispronounce it in any particularly
egregious manner. I hear Nigerians pronounce
it like “ren-dey-voo,” and native-speakers
pronounce it “ron-dey-voo” or “ron-di-voo.”
That’s not a big difference. I included the word
in spite of my dubiety about its being a victim
of mispronunciation in Nigeria because more
than 10 people asked me to. Perhaps some
people sound out every letter in the word—like
“ren-dez-vus.”

12. Sotto voce. This Latin loanword for “in a
low voice” is properly pronounced “so-tow-vow-
chee.” But I’ve heard Nigerians pronounce it
like “soto-vos.”

Other words that readers suggested are chef
(which is properly pronounced “shef”), cognac
(which is properly pronounced “kown-yak”),
yacht (which is properly pronounced “yot”),
chalet, (which is correctly pronounced “sha-
ley”), jeopardy (which is correctly pronounced
“jepa(r)di”), leopard (which is correctly
pronounced “le-pa(r)d”), subtle (which is
correctly pronounced “sot(u)l”), and sachet
(correctly pronounced “sa-shey”).
I will update this blog with more words as they
occur to me--or as my readers suggest.

My advice for people who want to learn the
correct pronunciation of words is that they
should make it a habit to check the phonetic
spellings of words in good dictionaries. Most
people aren’t aware that dictionaries, in
addition to telling us the meaning and usage of
words, also teach us how to pronounce words.

Culled from www.farooqkperogi.com/2013/03/more-words-nigerians-commonly_31.html?m=1
Re: Check Out Your Pronunciation Errors Here!You May Be Found Wanting by NessaFresh(f): 11:27am On Mar 31, 2013
WOW I've been pronouncing most of these words the wrong way. Great post @ Op!

(1) (Reply)

The Last Fight / One Wrong Turn: Must Read Story / Happy Birthday Temitope Daniel

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 17
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.