@tpia6 what I was trying to tell her was to picture her village and see the shock on people face when they can no longer understand the people speaking on their favorite local shows. that's why I used Anambra

I also love the word

Guy u try , na. Awa ladies dey one try confuse demselves with dis ascent tins...

rubbish, your piece of shit isn't worth sharing. when people murder grammer.. u complain, they speak fluent english.. u complain.. and then they use us or uk accent to speak u guys also complain? plz! you want people to speak like firstlady of federal republic "na only u waka come" plz find something worth sharing and talk about. in my opinion, i see nothing wrong with d use us or uk accent. don't u have something better to share? talk about 70million nigerians that statistics shows are illitrates, they cannot read or write.

Forget awards.we all know as it deh go. I think d gals name is Vicky. I do t listen to the station anymore self cos they seem to play music all the time that would make think you are in a n English bar in Abu Dhabi or Australia.

khenykhey:


Maria okan I guess

Well she won the award for the best oap at the just concluded Nea just because she has a British accent

Majority of Nigerians have a lot of insecurities.
I am yet to see a Nigerian guy who has not lied in his desperation to woo a babe.

The fakeness is really getting on my nerves, and it's even worse with the ladies. One thing I have learnt is to blatantly snub them.

bestads:


Blackberry pinging,facebook and twitter short spellings have finished your life, that is why you cannot read and comprehend a short article like this....How can you pass WAEC,SSCE,GCE and NECO..Do you think these exam bodies recognise pinging and short spellings

Soft bro!

Radio presenters try soo freaking hard to fake British or US accents but still pronounce " have" as "ave"; "has" as "as".. Charity begins at home!

anyone who doesn't see this as a deep inferiority complex, anyone who doesn't see this as a problem is simply deluded, I mean if I got the op right, people are being denied promotions because they can't or don't want to fake an accent? are you kidding me? furthermore why is that the Africans in India, Malaysia,south Africa, Kenya , Uganda etc don't come back sounding like the people from those countries? why is that a nigerian living in south Africa don't come back speaking like south African AND/OR INSIST On using it on tv &co?

pleaaaase spare us, this whole issue has to do with inferiority complex

Some of the OAPs-mostly ladies- here in Akure are terrible with prounciations. Be it Nigerian names or foreign. I bet u will nearly switch off your radio because they are simply annoying whenever you hear their very bad prounciations. Worst off is when they try copying foreign accents. I wonder if they are still doing interview or audition or whatever they do to test them before employment in those radio stations. I know in lagos most of the OAPs- mostly ladies are either using British,American or worst of Southie accents. Na wah o!

Sometimes it's not about 'faking' accents. It's about speaking proper english. You see, we are so used to poor pronunciation, that when we hear how words are truly supposed to be pronounced it now sounds foreign.

An analogy can be seen in what happens in Nigerian politics. There's been so much corruption that a politician that does what he's 'supposed' to do is seen as performing well. That oughtn't be as he's just doing his job. Same thinga applies with the foreign accent issue. We are so used to bad english (both in grammatical construction and pronunciation cum delivery) that anyone seen doing it right is termed a 'faker'.

An example is our usual pronunciation of a word like Girl. The average Nigerian would say GERL, whereas the true pronunciation is GIRRLL (got to break it down so folks get it; G(OR)LL). There is the ER sound (not AIR but OR with some slurring of the R and L) before the L sound. Now, someone pronouncing it right would be seen as faking it. Same thing with words like Bird (Nigerian-BED, True-B(ORR)D), so many more I can mention.

Now, this in no way means that there aren't people who fake it. You know by how hard they try, it doesn't come naturally, it doesn't "flow" plus there is no consistency. You seem them when discussing i getting the accent right in some words and pronouncing it like the average Nigerian when it gets to other words. Why? Because it doesn't come naturally to them, they're faking it! If it's natural and an attempt at good english, it just "flows".

P:S: This topic is stale. Mods should know better. Nice thing a paid Mod is in the works.

CAMNEWTON4PRES:
anyone who doesn't see this as a deep inferiority complex, anyone who doesn't see this as a problem is simply deluded, I mean if I got the op right, people are being denied promotions because they can't or don't want to fake an accent? are you kidding me? furthermore why is that the Africans in India, Malaysia,south Africa, Kenya , Uganda etc don't come back sounding like the people from those countries? why is that a nigerian living in south Africa don't come back speaking like south African AND/OR INSIST On using it on tv &co?

pleaaaase spare us, this whole issue has to do with inferiority complex

The answer is simply that there is nothing "funky" about an African accent.
Heck, even someone who travels to Douala will be faking a British accent when he returns to Naija

CAMNEWTON4PRES:

so you see nothing wrong with an Anambra radio host speaking like a white redneck?

Oh please no matter how hard they try they still sound very Nigerian! Which is beautiful YouTube nigerian OAPs and hear them speak.

CFCfan:

The answer is simply that there is nothing "funky" about an African accent.
Heck, even someone who travels to Douala will be faking a British accent when he returns to Naija

datalossvictim1:


Oh please no matter how hard they try they still sound very Nigerian! Which is beautiful YouTube nigerian OAPs and hear them speak.

I will
and that's nice

This op self...are u an essayist?...abi u nor sabi summarise..choi see tory abeg just ontop accent. anyways

Iv seen people who have never seen an airplane b4,yet they still form british and american accent#infact my friend who went to ukraine to study, came back with an american accent. Nd I'm like WTH!!

The first thing that hit me was the family tree. I speak pidgin with my dude friends anyway, and straight up proper English with girls except we are close. There was this chiq that had this accent when I was in secondary school, girls beefed her die, boys could care less.

If you cherish your culture request a tribal mark

zenith4biz:
If you cherish your culture request a tribal mark

and if my culture doesn't have such?

I think people in Nigeria do lyk a person wit American or British accent cus dey usually speaks more fluently compared to one wit Nigerian accent.

I have full fledged american accent here in USA.. When i lved in Nigeria my younger days, i returned to USA with full fledged Nigerian accent before it changed after a year back in USA.. I was born and raised with USA accent by my USA mother and then later learned Nigeria accent when hanging with friends and fathers family in Nigeria ..
If i return to Nigeria to hang with friends again, i will pick up Nigerian accent again... Thats the normal course of flexible language ability..

But yes it is amusing that people develop accents that are not really connected to by family and friends or simply travelling..
Television is the key to this happening.. Some people spend more time watching foriegn TV programs than they do practicing their native language... In many countries, there are children who learn to sing american Pop songs with perfect american accent and real musical talent, But when you ask them if they know what the words mean, they quickly reveal that they dont know how to speak english or know the meaning of the words... Thats why I saw many young school girls singing the most sexually vulgar american songs and not knowing what it means, they just like the melody, rythm and tune of it..
Also sad to see so many people emulate only the american street gangster accent and attitudes when they have such a nice and respectful upbringing and nature from their own upbringing in Nigeria or elsewhere... Meanwhile many Black americans want to come and learn how to be Black african again, in the african continent perspective..

Men this article was damn long I heard to take a break and av some coffee before I could finish it . Pls OP next time try to be brief

CAMNEWTON4PRES:
anyone who doesn't see this as a deep inferiority complex, anyone who doesn't see this as a problem is simply deluded, I mean if I got the op right, people are being denied promotions because they can't or don't want to fake an accent? are you kidding me? furthermore why is that the Africans in India, Malaysia,south Africa, Kenya , Uganda etc don't come back sounding like the people from those countries? why is that a nigerian living in south Africa don't come back speaking like south African AND/OR INSIST On using it on tv &co?

pleaaaase spare us, this whole issue has to do with inferiority complex

Oga thank u ooooo. Tell dem oooo

Dis same pple will stay in UGANDA for 100 years and nt change accent ooo, dem go stay UK for 1 year and start to form accent

wazobia all the way .... f*ck fake life .

GeneralShepherd:


Is English language your culture in the first place?

No why are you asking me this question.

CAMNEWTON4PRES:
anyone who doesn't see this as a deep inferiority complex, anyone who doesn't see this as a problem is simply deluded, I mean if I got the op right, people are being denied promotions because they can't or don't want to fake an accent? are you kidding me? furthermore why is that the Africans in India, Malaysia,south Africa, Kenya , Uganda etc don't come back sounding like the people from those countries? why is that a nigerian living in south Africa don't come back speaking like south African AND/OR INSIST On using it on tv &co?

pleaaaase spare us, this whole issue has to do with inferiority complex

Yeah I'm glad that I don't have this inferiority complex. I'm very proud of my culture.

pansophist:
Lol, english sef, no be we get am

na y I dey fear if naija go develop atimes ... in south africa , afrikaans is of great priority.

Fulaman198:


Yeah I'm glad that I don't have this inferiority complex. I'm very proud of my culture.

blessedgreat:
. African/nigerian pronunciation; Ebola.

And who told you that?

Both pronunciations are correct. If you doubt, look it up in the dictionary.

watched dis gbogbo big girls girl get interviewed on trending. D British accent was so much. so annoying

skyeboy98:
Op ur sis sch in uk, ur uncle sch in usa, ur daddy sch in ghana,ur wife sch in aus,where did u sch op?

he my have schooled in borno , but how does this concern the debate.

nobilis:
OP, Thanks for giving us your life And family history. You should have also mentioned when you naturalized as an American or a British citizen.

Back to the topic.
What's all the fuss about accent?
There is No hard And fast rule anywhere that a person must speak a language in a certain way because he is from a particular country . People can decide to pick up new accents or drop the old ones they acquired in the past. People can also to learn new accents And be using them interchangeably with the previous ones they acquired.
As for me, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. As long you are communicating with your audience, you're covered. After all, a person's nationality must not be known through his accent.

And (I stand to be corrected), I don't think there is anything like Nigerian accent because the way an Hausa man speaks English is so different from the way an Igbo or Yoruba man speaks it. Let alone other ethnic groups.

And for those mentioning culture And pride about culture, I wonder when English language became part of your culture. So what has a "Nigerian accent" got to do with culture? Do tell.

you the fuss master. you know very well what d op is getting at yet you twist issues