Mama Put, Danfo, and 27 other Nigerian words now in the Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary has added 29 Nigerian words and expressions in the January 2020 updates to the dictionary.

A statement released on the dictionary’s website reads;

“Nigerians have made, and are continuing to make, a unique and distinctive contribution to English as a global language.”

The Oxford English Dictionary January 2020 update includes 29 Nigerian-English words that are now “official.

“The majority of these new additions are either borrowings from Nigerian languages, or unique Nigerian coinages that have only begun to be used in English in the second half of the twentieth century, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s,” OED’s World English editor Danica Salazar said.

See the full list of Nigerian English language words added to the Oxford Dictionary below:

agric
barbing salon
buka
bukateria
chop
chop-chop
danfo
to eat money
ember months
flag-off
to flag off
gist (noun)
gist (verb)
fiber
Kannywood
K-9 leg
mama put
next tomorrow
non-indigene
okada
to put to bed
qualitative
to rub minds
set
send-forth
severally
tokunbo
zone (verb)
zoning (noun)

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