The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has added a few words to its lexicon, a few of which originate from West Africa.
In everyday language, words like ‘nyash‘ and ‘abeg’ have become mainstream, even beyond the country of their origin, which is Nigeria.
According to Vanguard, widely used Nigerian and West African terms connected to food, music, everyday speech, markets, and pop culture feature in the latest update.
This highlights the increasing global influence of African languages on the English language.
OED Head of Pronunciations, Catherine Sangster, said the update marked an important development in how pronunciations are documented across different varieties of English, reports Vanguard.
“With this update, we introduce a new model for the transcription of Maltese English pronunciations; this is the nineteenth World English pronunciation model in our collection,” Sangster continued.
“We also celebrate a decade of OED having spoken pronunciations, which were first added in December 2015,” Sangster said.
According to PunchNG, over 1,000 existing entries were also revised, while editors explored the histories of words such as “troll”, “coffee”, and “snooker”.
The update includes additions from varieties of English used around the world, including West African English, Maltese English, Japanese English, and South Korean English.
OED editors are noting the growing global influence of these Englishes.
Other West African words added to Oxford English Dictionary
‘Amala’, ‘Ghana must go’, ‘Moi Moi’, ‘biko’, and ‘abeg’ are a few of the other West African words that made it into the OED.
You may also like:
Oxford names ‘rage bait’ as Word of the Year: Here’s what it means
