‘Kannywood,’ which refers to the film industry in northern Nigeria and ‘mama put,’ a colloquial for a road-side local restaurant, are among 29 Nigerian words that appeared in the January update of Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
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News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that OED’s World English Editor, Danica Salazar, had announced in a statement the `admission’ of 29 Nigerian words and expressions in the January updates to the dictionary.
She said: “The majority of these new additions are either borrowings from Nigerian languages or unique Nigerian coinages.”
According to her, some of these coinages have only begun to be used in English in the second half of the 20th century, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.
‘Next tomorrow,’ regarded as the oldest among the uniquely Nigerian words/expressions, is one of the new entries into the dictionary.
According to Salazar, ‘next tomorrow’ was first used in written English as a noun in 1953, and as an adverb in 1964.
‘Okada,’ a popular word in Nigeria for motorbike and ‘Tokunbo’ a word for second-hand materials, are now in the dictionary.
All the new Nigerian everyday words added are Agric, barbing salon, Buka, bukateria, chop, chop-chop, danfo, to eat money, ember months, flag-off, to flag-off, gist (n), gist (v), Guber.
Others are Kannywood, k-leg, mama put, next tomorrow, non-indigene, okada, to put to bed, qualitative, to rub minds, sef, send-forth, severally, tokunbo, zone, and zoning.