₦airaland Forum

AfricanApple:
instead of them to care more about speaking good english

Exjoker:
I don't give a dime about it

Finafina:
i roll with Nigerians my frnd! if i brot a british lady bac home n she stays in my house for a yr she sure will have a slight change of accent!!!!!

annoymous:
A lot of the things we actually call nigerian accent is mostly bad English because the inflections in Yoruba and other nigerian languages are very different from English. So we tend to stress on the wrong syllables when we speak English. So when people try to speak proper English, it comes across as 'forming British English'. But then again, a lot of our lagos and Abuja babe's dey overdo, lol

CFCfan:
I know. It's ridiculous that Nigerian celebrities who aren't American citizens, are celebrating Halloween IN Nigeria?!!

timmy:
@op. Since when has it been a crime to choose how you speak? You make it sound like it's a crime, punishable next to sodomy. What does having a Nigerian accent do to you? So long I can hear you i'm just as fine.

Why don't you wear Ankara every day because you choose to dress Nigerian?

majekdom2:
how lovely would it have been if the americans celebrated osun / yam festival over there when we do it here.

majekdom2:
bad english is wrong tenses majorly . pronunciation comes under phonics , phonetics and intonations ... which is never bad as long as you use the righht tenses an passing your message across . its never bad to speak with an accent as long as you dont think with an accent . if the indians , germans coming to work in nigeria form british accents .... how well would it have been then.

GolfingDiva:
What a piece of trash and racist article.

I think your state is low and so, you sounded discombobulated probably because you've been mocked at due to your deep accent.

Life is a great adventure. If you've had your first degree abroad and lived for so many years, your accent automatically changes.

Another thing is environment and of course, your classmates. So, leave us alone with your idiotic piece to make money for advertisements.

Get the most out of life now.

annoymous:
i totally disagree with you. ofcourse having an accent is not inherently wrong as long as you get not just the tenses but the proper dictionary pronunciation but if you stress the wrong syllable all in the name of having an accent, then there is a problem. for example, saying embaRASS instead of emBArass can be very emBArassing

shedraq1:
It has become extremely difficult to identify a Nigerian from his or her accent these days. We are now sounding more American and British than the Americans and Britons themselves. When you listen to radio and voice in some TV commercials and radio jingles these days, you hardly hear the ‘Nigerian accent’ we grew up to know, and I begin to ask how we got here. Is this western influence? Did over half of our population suddenly travel abroad overnight to acquire an accent?

As I begin to ask questions, let me take a look at the people closest to me. Two of my uncles studied in the United States. Not just first degree but master’s degree as well. One of them even had a Ph.D and lived there for over 20 years before returning to Nigeria; none of them has an American accent. One of my maternal uncles and another aunt have been living in the UK ever since I can remember. When they came visiting some years back, none of them had a British accent. And so does my uncle that has lived in Australia for about 20 years.

My wife schooled in the UK for her master’s degree and does not have an atom of British accent when she speaks. Her elder sister schooled for 2 years in the United States and doesn’t have an American accent either. My wife’s half brother and sister are half-caste because their mum is a white English woman. They schooled in the UK to master’s degree level and lived there for a while as well and they don’t have a British accent (though a few words can’t escape her). I can go on and on about so many others. So it beats me hollow when a Nigerian travels to the United States for two months and returns with an American accent or when a Nigerian goes for her master’s degree in the UK and starts talking through her nose when she returns. It’s even so bad now, that some people accompany someone who is travelling overseas to the international airport and comes back home with an accent!

I can understand that some people were born and raised there and it has become part of their system and way of life. But one thing I have discovered is that those that travelled there don’t lose their Nigerian tongue completely. When I was in New York, I stayed in Manhattan with my cousin who had been living in the United States since he was 8 years old. He is about 30 now. He has a flat mate that is also a Nigerian who went there to school and has been living there.

I observed that they had this strong black American accent when they speak on the phone or have a conversation with their American friends, but whenever we were having a chat in the house, they always returned to their Nigerian accent. Even when he visits Nigeria, He speaks in his Nigerian accent even though he can speak like an American very well and not those fake and undone accents I get to hear on radio. I have observed closely those ‘returnees’ that have lost their Nigerian accent really haven’t. Once in a while, when you have a conversation with them, it slips out in some words or sentences and they return to their other accent. But will you blame them? Speaking in an American or British accent is now a status symbol. We admire and respect anything that has a resemblance to America or England. We see them as superior and since as they enjoy that position they would want to remain there.

I have worked in the entertainment and media industry for over 10 years and trust me, I have seen a lot. Most of our on-air personalities now have a foreign accent. There was even a radio station in Lagos that wouldn’t even want to hire you if you had a Nigerian accent. Our voice over artists who grew up in Ibadan can’t even pronounce “Adeola Odeku Street’ anymore the way we will know that it’s a street on Victoria Island and not Los Angeles. Some of them cannot even pronounce their own name very well. This is sad. I grew up listening to Tokunbo Ajayi, Cyril Stober and Ruth Benemesia Opia deliver news casting in a way that made you admire them for their professionalism. All that is gone. A young girl once worked as a newscaster in a TV station in Lagos and I heard that because she had a foreign accent, she got lots of privileges and I know this for a fact because it’s my industry and I have friends in every media house. She got holidays oversees and other perks that others who had been working there could not dream of.

Of course she left after a while and we hardly see her anymore but this is our reality. Though I thought she was a good newscaster. I also know a certain media house on cable TV where they all speak through their noses and form cliques amongst themselves. You are valued according to your accent. So everyone wants to belong, whether you grew up there, or you only visited for two weeks, or you went there for your master’s degree; all join, just dey blow foneh dey go. That’s the only way you can be seen as a sophisticated babe or big boy. I remember one time when one of them referred to those of us with Nigerian accent as ‘locals’. Na wa oh!

These led some of my friends in a certain radio station in Lagos to start what they call the LAFA Awards. LAFA stands for Locally Acquired Foreign Accent. It was done to expose on air personalities on radio that never lived outside the country and have a foreign accent. I had a good laugh as they called out the winners and I can’t wait for the next LAFA Awards.

I would also like to ask; I know a lot of white people who have lived in Nigeria for so many years. Some of them were even born here, especially the Lebanese. But how come they don’t have a Nigerian accent? Why is it the other way round?

I think Nigerians should be comfortable with speaking with their Nigerian accent. CNN recently ranked the different accents in the world according to how sexy they sounded and Surprise! Surprise! The disdained Nigerian accent was ranked 5th. It ranked even higher than the American and British accents. I don’t think you need a foreign accent to have a high self-esteem. The people we admire here in Nigeria for their success and all they have achieved did all they did without an American accent and still have a high place in our society. The likes of Aliko Dangote, Mike Adenuga and Femi Otedola don’t have one.

Even in our entertainment industry, Tuface, P square, Wizkid and Asa don’t have foreign accent. Likewise Nneka, D’Banj and Don Jazzy that have lived abroad don’t have it not to talk of Davido who was born abroad. We should learn to embrace the way we speak and be proud of it just like the Americans and the British would never change their accent for anyone.

Orikinla:
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.

Rapzino:
nice one bae

4C2215131:
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.

Sanmix2007:
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.

AfricanApple:


howdy

manjiggy:
The truth is most people regard those who speak with a foreign accent as superior and vice-versa
For example as an ibadan man some people see those of us who speak in our native dialect as razz people.



Even on Nairaland a lot of people make fun of General Muhammadu Buhari because of his accent.

Until we start setting our priorities right, we still have a long way to go.


Cheers.

tpia6:
i dont think there's any accent in pidgin.

its either you speak it or you dont.

and as long as people can hear you, they dont bother checking for accents.

CAMNEWTON4PRES:
bad/wrong pronunciation has nothing to do with an accent, even the white you are so eager to emulate have an accent, why is that they don't change their to make you comfortable? I m pretty sure it never crossed their mind nor yours, so why should you change yours? they are just trying to bully you except if you really have a bad diction other than that everyone has an accent

majekdom2:
there is definitely an accent in pidgin ... the way a yoruba man speaks it is different from the way a warii man does.

ferdimako:
Economy and accountable leadership make you wanna copy them completely. Why study there in the first place?

LyfeJennings:
It all depends on how U see the person.
I have an American accent and I have never been to the states. I grew in front of the TV, watching American movies and soaps, grew up listening to Hiphop all my life and I picked it up there. I also attended a very good elementary school, it was a UN gathering those days so I picked my accent. I was a chronic introvert all those years of my life and I never lived in Highbrow areas except for when I go visit my cousin once in a blue moon.
& ive had the accent since the time I could pronounce A or B
I learn and pick up other languages and cultural value very very fast.... so having an accent depends on if the individual is faking it or not....


Last note; What U said about the newscaster is true. Her name is Adaure Achumba... she is a Rihanna look alike. Used to anchor early morning programme with Victoria Pepple & Iretiola Doyle & she casts the news at night on Silverbird. She now work in BBc or I think its affiliate in Oyekan Drive, Ikoyi....

neocortex:
Every developed country rely on their native language as a means of communication, instead of feeling 'Nigerian' by using Nigerian accent for a foreign language it is better if we advocate for the development of our own languages. There is absolutely nothing wrong in using foreign accent for a foreign language. I believe we cannot copy a language and call it our own just because we can apply our local accent to it.

JackBizzle:
See this fake person.

It is only you that has cable/satellite at home abi?

tpia6:
Why are nairalanders so hung up on accents?

Is this an inferiority complex?

Or some kind of fixation?

Imagine someone listing all their family members who "have lived abroad for 20 years and have no abroad accent". This is the height of joblessness, have you no life.

LyfeJennings:
Never been to the east and I can speak igbo with a strong igbo accent. How is that? Permit me to call U a dumb. Nothing is impossible in this world. Just cos its not happened to U doesnt mean it hasnt or cant happen to someone else.


FYI, we never had a cable/satellite.

generalgie:
Omo yi gba 5 jare