English English or Anglicized English?

Title:  Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World Author:        Farooq A. Kperogi (Ph.D) Publisher:   Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, New York Pages:         244 Reviewer:   Ahmed Umar (Ph.D) Even the keyword in the title of the book, glocal, sums up the contents of the book: use […]

Title:  Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World
Author:        Farooq A. Kperogi (Ph.D)
Publisher:   Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, New York
Pages:         244
Reviewer:   Ahmed Umar (Ph.D)
Even the keyword in the title of the book, glocal, sums up the contents of the book: use of a global medium for local communication, which, in turn, further enriches the global medium. Indeed, from its earliest enrichment by Greek, Latin and Norman (Potter, 1971; Barber, 1972) to its borrowings of words/expressions from many other languages, English can be described as lingual salad or, to quote Dr. Kperogi (p. 41), “a melange of several languages…a lingual ‘bastard’ from its very nascence.” This book by Kperogi is an analytical chronicle of the Nigerian English phylum of its global evolution.
Kperogi’s linguistic versatility and academic specialization in investigative journalism have been evident in his numerous writings on various spheres of lingual and sociocultural communications, particularly highlighted in Nigerian English. In the course of studying the sources, evolution and forms of English usage in Nigeria, Kperogi has inevitably explored even beyond pure linguistics into other related variables like sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. From numerous Nigerian vernaculars, social situations, vocational types, cultures and norms, the reader of this book will be taken through the evolution of Nigerian English to its current status.
The book is organized into five parts. The first part introduces conceptual issues that inform the categorization/naming of three varieties of English: British, American and Nigerian. The second part compares the three varieties based on their peculiar features/forms/meanings. This part contains the focal analysis of the data in the book. The third part can be seen as a sub-topic of the second and fourth parts. However, it may have been given a separate treatment because of its socially wide and ideologically significant operative field/context: News Media. Whereas Part Two compares the three English varieties on their individual features, Part Four proffers a more detailed, more specific analysis of the Nigerian English variety. The fifth and last part of the book, like the third one, discusses a sub-type of Nigerian English. It too may have probably been accorded a separate part because of its socially pervasive and lingually creative field: Politics.
Though this book may not be the first in studies of Englishes/English varieties, especially the Nigerian variety, it certainly stands out as one of its few (only?) kind in terms of redefining Nigerian English within a global context, updating the corpus of Nigerian English via current events, and analysing the corpus in ways that are not too linguistically technical to non-linguists, who may constitute a large part of its readership. It identifies the peculiar features of Nigerian English as products of its local functional needs but emphasizes the responsibility of the Nigerian variety to recognize the wider global standard for its global communication (p. 22-23).
Kperogi posits that four factors have shaped Nigerian English (p. xviii): “linguistic improvisation”; “old-fashioned British expressions”; “initial usage errors fossilized over time and incorporated into the Nigerian linguistic repertory”, and a “mishmash of British and American English”. Of these four factors, the first and third factors can be said to have provided the most peculiar features of Nigerian English. In the first instance, Nigerian learners/users of English either import aspects of their “other” first language(s) into English or “reform” some established forms of English, in either case, to serve their communicative needs/purposes. Such improvisations may have arisen either because the English they had learned lacked adequate expressions of their target conversational concepts/messages or such Nigerian users simply did not know the adequate expressions existent in English.
Ironically, however, these four factors stated above have also applied in shaping British and American Englishes over the past two or more centuries. Both lexically and syntactically, even British English has borrowed a lot from Greek, Latin, Arabic and many other languages to “update” its lingual stock and attain continually changing communicative and conceptual goals. The birth, growth, old age, and (in some cases) rebirth of languages depend on the speakers; their territory; their interactive scope (including influence/power). Thus, for instance, when Britain expanded its socio-political and commercial interaction to Arabia or Africa, it inevitably had to borrow some words or expressions from languages of those regions to remedy some attendant linguistic/communicative loopholes in its English. Such borrowings or their resultant modifications of some English forms may have initially been frowned at by some dogmatic English grammarians, to be eventually and gradually accepted by them as normal, acceptable. This fact is extensively discussed in this book (pp. 47-55), especially via a circle portrayed by Kperogi as: correct usage established by grammar experts > rebellious popular usage > grammarians’ re-codification/re-standardization based on popular usage > new usage (p. 48).
  To some readers of Kperogi’s “Politics of Grammar” column or his recurrent mentions of the term “dialectics”, Kperogi may have seemed “an uncompromising judge” of English dialects/varieties and standards. But after you have read his Glocal English from page i to 244, you come to realize that he is more of a “democrat” than a “judge” on English dialectics. He does not “try” the English “dialectical cases” as simply good or bad; rather, he assesses the varieties along relative standards, functional realities and institutional ideologies. Consequently, when, in one part of his book, he assesses, say, “you hear?” (p. 32) as incorrect, Nigerian English, under global standards, he analyses it as acceptable usage under functional realities, regional/Nigerian standards, in another part of the book.
  Kperogi’s analyses of the entries on Nigerian English in this book, though largely done in anecdotal style, involve technical parameters from linguistics (phonology, morphology, lexis/syntax, semantics); stylistics; literature; sociology and so on. In many cases, his explanation on one entry may involve a multiple of such parameters (for instance, his explanations on “motor park” [p. 136] or “Eat your cake and have it” [p. 176]). His analyses are thus mainly dynamic and multidimensional. Still, further clarifications could be proffered on some of his entries for possible incorporation into future editions of the book. Such entries are correct instances of standard English misuse in Nigerian English. However, the explanations on them may pose some syntactic ambiguity to some readers. These entries are:
1.  “wetin” [p.36] interpreted as “what is” by Kperogi. However, logical syntactic consistencies will reveal “wetin” as “what thing”: wetin be dis? (What thing is this?); wetin be ya name? (What thing/What is your name?); di tin dey worry me (The thing bothers me).
2.   “Best (ever)” [p.64]: Yes, as explained in the book, both of these words state “superlative states”. However, “best” is an attributive state; while “ever” is a temporal state, both in superlative degrees. They may be so combined to distinguish the temporal ranges: “best now”; “best then”; “best ever” (which is the universal temporal extreme).
3.  “Classify (into groups)” [p.65]: The book is right in presenting such a co-occurrence of the words “classify” and “group” as capable of conveying tautology (in the V + PP context here). However, “classify” may be modified by a PP (Prepositional Phrase) that replaces “groups” with other nouns like cardinal numerals. Thus, one may concisely say: “Classify the problems into two/three/etc”.
4.  “Evolve (over time)” [p.66]: As explained in the book, the word/verb “evolve” means “change over time”; so, following this verb with the PP “over time” amounts to redundant temporal modification, since this one verbal word captures that adverbial meaning. However, one may specify the period of evolution, as in: “evolve over a decade /century /etc”.
5.  “(Fellow) classmates” [p.67]: As rightly defined by the book, a “fellow is someone who is a member of one’s class or profession”; thus, the addition of “fellow” in “my fellow classmates” may appear tautological/redundant. However, it is logically and linguistically possible for “someone” to belong to more than one class/profession. Hence, if, say, a country’s civilian president happens to be humbly addressing an audience of politicians, academics and students at his alma mater, he may correctly say “fellow students”. Still, as stated by Kperogi, words like “classmates” and “colleagues” are too synonymous with “fellow” to so co-occur without incurring tautology.
6.  “vulcanizer” [p.135]: This word, categorized as one of the “weird words” in Nigerian English, as it is no longer used in Britain or America because the citizens there simply do not “repair” tyres, constitutes a good instance of how language is shaped by practical and communicative needs of its users, such as tyre repairs in Nigeria! This is a case supported even by Kperogi in his explanations on “motor park” (p.136).
  Almost all the borrowings from Nigerian vernaculars into English cited by this book are lexical. Subsequent editions of the book may broaden its data scope to syntactic interferences by Nigerian vernaculars in English. Instances of such a case are: “Yesterday, I came here” [non-emphatic fore-grounding of adverbial]; “Ahmed he came” [“he” used neither in apposition nor for emphasis]. Respective echoes in Hausa of these two examples are: “Jiya na zo nan” and “Amadu ya zo”.
  As stated above, this book is a unique, up-to-date analytical chronicle of the evolution and form of Nigerian English. Its other status as an enlightened and informative record on that English variety can be further consolidated by providing some glossary of all Nigerian English expressions/words used herein (or even more others) at the end of the book. In this great volume, Kperogi has succeeded not only in defining the evolution and current status of Nigerian English against other, wider global varieties, but also in firing a cannon into an already on-going duel of debates and questions among scholars of Englishes and other related linguists worldwide, as to how much of the current “global” English is English and how much of it simply Anglicized? What and who determines standard use of English, in the light of nativity, number and location of all its speakers today? Considering the components of every English variety in the world today, which variety is glocal and which global? Are even the British and American varieties global, considering the fact that about 80% of their components are not English but are borrowed/imported then Anglicized? Herein lies the logic in Kperogi’s popular phrase “Politics of [English] Grammar”!