Relearning English as My First Language

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization. 

By Olorunfunmi Adebajo
March 17, 2025

I started reading the Reader’s Digest magazine at eight years old and I was nine years old when I first used the word “ejaculate” in school. I had read it in Uncle Gabriel’s novel—written by either Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o or Chinua Achebe—and blurted it out in class, much to the dismay of my English teacher. By age ten, I knew that Ben Okri’s opening sentence in The Famished Road was “In the Beginning, there was a Road,” and I could flawlessly read the Yoruba Bible. At eleven, I was translating Yoruba to English in church and at twenty-nine, I was writing stories for a World Bank project and speeches for government officials.

Language acquisition was structured for me. I strictly spoke English in school, Yoruba at home and learned Pidgin English on the streets. I had an excellent grasp on all three of my languages—until I arrived in the U.S., where the ‘T’ in “water’’ miraculously converts to a ‘D’. I have tried but can never pronounce the American version of the word “important.” You see, English is my first language, but I learned Nigerian English, a derivative of the British English. Although Nigeria was colonized by the Britain, we managed to escape the nasalization they brought with their language.

Americans don’t speak English—they sing it, rattling along in other tongues like one possessed by a spirit. In Nigeria, we SPEAK English, enunciating every syllable with inflections and emotions shaped by our native languages. Dear Americans, how did “baby” become beiby’? As simple as the words “cat” and “bag” sound, I’ve had to spell them out a couple of times before people understood! Nigerians say “bag,” while Americans have somehow smuggled an ‘e’ into the word, pronouncing it almost like “beg.” As a community development specialist, one word I use daily is “poverdi,” and there was a time I found myself saying “Camden Couni Communidy Development office” every ten minutes. My tongue suffered! I also got lost on one occasion because no one knew where Bah-to-lo-mew (Bartholomew) Street was and on another occasion, I was wondering how a white lady named her child Morayo—a Yoruba name—till she spelt it out for me as M-A-R-I-A-H!

I’m still learning the difference between biscuits and cookies, and why Nigerians buy petrol for their cars while Americans fill their tanks with “gas,” but can someone tell me why Americans call the toilet a bathroom? Imagine me passionately discussing how people living in poverdi lack access to basic necessities like a toilet, only to have my professor gently correct me, “…bathroom, you mean.”

It’s not just the pronunciation—it’s the spellings too. Centre versus center; analyse versus analyze; aluminium versus aluminum. Despite being my first language, English has sometimes been a barrier. A simple “Can you repeat that, please?” or a slight frown has made me self-conscious on several occasions. Yet, I have also received compliments like, “…oh wow! I love your accent,” which makes me think, “Ehen, you love my accent!”

I set a goal for myself, if I could learn intermediate Hausa Language within a year of my compulsory para-military service in Nigeria, I could learn American English. By thinking of the American Accent as music whose tunes I have to learn, I have learnt to speak it at an intermediate level. I can now slur where necessary and emphasize my Rs as long as needed. The challenge is that it sometimes undermines my confidence. With so many American accents, as I often find myself wondering, “Did I get this accent right?” It takes an extra second or two to process some conversations but I have learnt to nod and smile as necessary when I don’t want a conversation, or simply ask for a repetition when I do.

Migration and social media are rapidly transforming global communication with approximately 281 million international migrants in 2024 and over five billion users on various platforms. As people from different cultures and backgrounds engage across virtual and physical borders, we are seeing both a fusion and evolution of language. Roger Blench’s Dictionary of Nigerian English, birthed the recognition of Nigerian English in global discourse. Ten years later, japa, eba, agbero and suya, words my grandmother uses in Ibadan have found their way into the Oxford dictionary. This continuous rise of the Nigerian English in global discourse signals a shift: English is no longer the sole property of its originators, it’s now a shared, constantly evolving entity.

The process of relearning English as my first language has been both challenging and engaging but also adds a new dimension to my understanding of the world and my place in it. Amidst this convergence of Englishes, I found a renewed appreciation for the distinctiveness of the Nigerian English. I revisited the interviews of two modern Nigerian women Chimamanda Adichie, one of Nigeria’s most celebrated authors, and Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization—and I fell in love again with the polished Nigerian accent. Their clear, deliberate enunciations, the distinct emphasis on certain vowels and the rich expressiveness of their conversations which have been celebrated on the global stage serve as a powerful reminder of who I am. If you can hear them, you can hear me too. Enjoy my tones, inflections and expressions as I speak English the Nigerian way; I am lending my voice to this global conversation.

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Author: This piece was written by Olorunfunmi Adebajo. He can be reached at [email protected].

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