Okada’, ‘Kannywood’, 27 other Nigerian words added to Oxford Dictionaries

A total of 29 Nigerian words and expressions have been included in the Oxford English Dictionary January updates.

They include, ‘Ember Month’, ‘Danfo’, ‘Non-indigene’, ‘Guber’, ‘Tokunbo’, ‘MamaPut’, ‘Kannywood’ and ‘Next Tomorrow’.

Kannywood, which refers to the film industry in northern Nigeria, is believed to be the youngest expression on the list.

Another new entry on the list is ‘Next tomorrow’. The expression is regarded as the oldest among the over 25 uniquely Nigerian words/expressions.

The  OED said , ‘Next Tomorrow’ was first used in written English as a noun in 1953, and as an adverb in 1964.

Others words like ‘Buka,’ ‘Bukateria’ and ‘Severally’ also made the cut.

On its website, the OED editors noted that they have been expanding their representation of written and spoken pronunciations from an increasing number of global varieties of English since 2016.

“This was the perfect opportunity for OED’s pronunciation team to add a West African English model to our World English coverage, bringing our current total to fifteen,” their statement read.

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