The Nigerian and his O's!

If you are Nigerian the chances are that you say O! after many statements you make while speaking. My roommate who is Kenyan pointed it out to me yesterday:) I could only smile, I thought I did not say O! but after speaking for a few minutes I realised that I had just ended one sentence with O!

O! Is for emphasis, its a way of making sure your words are heard and understood. Its the way you recognize that the next person is going with the flow of words. Speaking without using O's derives the words of some sweetness that cannot be tangibly assessed. There is something dry, foreign and starchy about speaking without interjecting with O's and pouring them lavishly to garnish a discussion!

He suffered O! It is true O! What do you mean jor! He is coming O! Hide it under the table O! All the sentences carry an extra meaning implying a depth of suffering, a veracity of the tale, an entreaty to explain the hidden, a cry of warning etc!

O!, Jor!, To!, Kai, Ha, Haba,  and many other words dot our vocabulary and make the delivery of the language more of our own. The interjections are a few things that I have missed in the last few months. Speaking English the Nigerian way:) It is something you do not realize you do but which others can point out in a jiffy! Its what makes us distinct and what makes others laugh:)

What other queer words or expressions belong to our speech? If you are not Nigerian what words or expressions make you stand out as belonging to a particular group or culture?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Death III

Image
In recounting my near misses, I can't but think of how many other misses I am unaware of. As a child, I was the only one who was hospitalized a few times compared to my siblings and cousins. I cannot remember if I ever felt sick enough to be at deaths door, but I do know I disliked getting injections. During one of my trips to the hospital I was to receive a Novalgin injection, for those of you old enough to remember Novalgin, it was the most painful torturous injection ever. I screamed hell and blue murder as the nurse approached with a Novalgin shot. 'I don't take injections', I lamented in my most piteous voice, you would think anyone with a heart would see the tears and back down but those nurses were a special breed. After a few minutes of my temporary madness, my father was summoned, it took just one look from him and I accepted the drilling of the syringe through my marrow (that was what it felt like) without as much as a squeak. The feeling Novalgin gave your bu...
Read more

Death 5

Image
Over the past few years, I have observed with much more attention, the passage of generations. I listened to the retirement speech of an old teacher of mine in medical school. She spoke about wondering why a classmate of hers in high school was bereft because her father had died in his 50s. Her own parents were in their 30s and according to her, she thought 50 was ancient. She tactlessly commented about her friends grief wondering why she was so distraught. She made us all laugh when she mentioned that now at the age of 70, she does not count herself as one of the ancients. My job brings me face to face with death on a daily basis and this has spurred me to put my house in order. I have had documents prepared for the disposal of my earthly benefits and I have appointed financial and health power of attorneys. I mention, like I mentioned in my last post to prevent the DMs that never fail to follow these posts, that I am not actively dying but I think preparing for death is as important ...
Read more

My Mother Tongue!

I grew up speaking English as my first language and I can tell you that is one fact I am not proud about. I remember once when we were much younger shouting out the only Yoruba words we knew as children 'olosi', 'oloriburuku' etc. My grandmother came out of the house hurriedly to put a stop to our foolishness, what on earth did we think we were doing? she asked, our reply still puts a smile on my face 'we are speaking Yoruba' we replied. My lack of proficiency in speaking Yoruba ( I can write it:) is revealed anytime I speak to my patients. When our conversation is not just me answering in monosyllables, I begin to speak rapidly in my mother tongue but by the end of my first two sentences, I hear myself stuttering and stammering and Im wondering if the patients don't think this doctor is having a sudden attack of catatonia! My Yoruba teacher in Secondary school summed up my Yoruba speaking prowess to my parents during an open day 'She is a good student b...
Read more