Married Life: Nigerian Colloquialisms

Each Country, City and Town has it’s a particular vibe, a sense and personality that is specific to that very locality. To some people a Mancunian and Liverpoolian sounds the same but ask someone from Manchester or Liverpool if thats true. In the same light, Lagos has it’s very own unique personality and I’m slowly starting to get a grasp of the local dialect. For instance, if you’d like to say how are you in Lagos, you’d say ‘How now?’ or ‘How Body?’. If you want someone to guide you to a certain destination you’d say ‘You go, I go follow.’ Obviously you’d have to adopt the accent to have the full effect but you get the idea. Such phrases you can comprehend but the same can not be said for all actions.

 

For instance, Mr.B was having an accented conversation with the Sofa maker and discussing the job at hand as I watched from afar. I was slowly getting used to his ability to speak ‘Pigeon English’ like a local and realised how much of an asset it was. Mr.B’s hands waved in the air and came together in a clap as he talked to the pot bellied and top less African about how he’d like the end product to look. Once he was done, there was dead silence until the shorter man turned to Mr.B and asked with complete sincerity;