tpia6:
Why are nairalanders so hung up on accents?

Is this an inferiority complex?

Or some kind of fixation?

Imagine someone listing all their family members who "have lived abroad for 20 years and have no abroad accent". This is the height of joblessness, have you no life.

it is annoying , esp when you know the person never been or lived abroad, I mean your audience is a local one why faking an accent then? who are the oyibo supposed to hear you? it is annoying I can't watch a tv show with people speaking like martians

@op I don't know for Nigeria but here the women take the cup, sometimes it is like a contest imagine me listening to the local news of my department and I can't even understand what the person is saying na wa o

I will never change my accent

claremont:
I think it depends on the social circle you find yourself when you live and work in countries like the UK and the USA. I live and work in a white-dominated environment, 95% of my colleagues are all white British-born; I don't have an English accent but I have learned to speak in a way that the people in my social circle can understand and relate with. I am sick and tired of repeating myself anytime I have to communicate with them using my Nigerian accent, and hence, I had to make an effort to speak in a way they can understand.

The OP talked about his family who have lived for years overseas and yet they still retain their Nigerian accent, I think it's because they have maintained a social circle that is made up of people from their backgrounds i.e. fellow Nigerians and Africans. There is no way an African would live in a European and/or American social circle and wouldn't unintentionally imbibe some elements of their culture i.e. their way of speaking.

My 2p.

I owe you a plate of fried plantain

Its even more annoying when u call ur friends back home in nija and they will be like " guy how come u no dey blow fonee"

Its simply inferiority complex.

If Asians and Europeans here in state's still speak English without changing their accents then why should I?

My people and their fake life don tire me.

@op. Since when has it been a crime to choose how you speak? You make it sound like it's a crime, punishable next to sodomy. What does having a Nigerian accent do to you? So long I can hear you i'm just as fine.

Why don't you wear Ankara every day because you choose to dress Nigerian?

There is dis gal on beat fm 99.9. U can't miss her. A disgusting. I tweeted her on a program telling her how disgusting she sounds and they started talking about my tweet that it was rude and had my twitter handle blocked . U can't miss that gal on 99.9 fm beat. Very irritating gal.

timmy:
@op. Since when has it been a crime to choose how you speak? You make it sound like it's a crime, punishable next to sodomy. What does having a Nigerian accent do to you? So long I can hear you i'm just as fine.

Why don't you wear Ankara every day because you choose to dress Nigerian?

no relation whatsoever

Ishilove:

You misunderstood the OP completely. He doesn't have anything against those who have lived outside Nigeria for an extended period of time, and he even gave an illustration of his cousin who has lived in America for a greater part of his life and as such has two accents. The Op's grouse is with those who have never travelled abroad, or perhaps stayed abroad for a short period, yet speak with the contrived accents.

No I didn't. He talked about those that lived abroad for a few and dumped their Nigerian accents and also those that didn't stay long enough to have acquired the accent. He also mentioned those who haven't been outside of Africa

claremont:
I think it depends on the social circle you find yourself when you live and work in countries like the UK and the USA. I live and work in a white-dominated environment, 95% of my colleagues are all white British-born; I don't have an English accent but I have learned to speak in a way that the people in my social circle can understand and relate with. I am sick and tired of repeating myself anytime I have to communicate with them using my Nigerian accent, and hence, I had to make an effort to speak in a way they can understand.

The OP talked about his family who have lived for years overseas and yet they still retain their Nigerian accent, I think it's because they have maintained a social circle that is made up of people from their backgrounds i.e. fellow Nigerians and Africans. There is no way an African would live in a European and/or American social circle and wouldn't unintentionally imbibe some elements of their culture i.e. their way of speaking.

My 2p.

bad/wrong pronunciation has nothing to do with an accent, even the white you are so eager to emulate have an accent, why is that they don't change their to make you comfortable? I m pretty sure it never crossed their mind nor yours, so why should you change yours? they are just trying to bully you except if you really have a bad diction other than that everyone has an accent

EroticAngelina:
I think some emulate the american British accent..and some don't.

if they wanna change it, they can..but if they don't want, then they can't..its a choice.

some grow up with British accents like me they master it either from schooling there or attending a school with British curriculums

my pry school, we used British curriculum plus our phonetics teaching etc, that makes him or her get a British accent.

don't knw about america

wat a truckload of crap...so 1 can now develop an accent via black-on-white typed curriculum eh Bera learn how to lie please!

I work in UK customer service industry and I try to speak very clearly, I know I have a different accent from the British and Nigerians but I still have my Nigerian accent whenever I am with Nigerians.


My accent has really differentiated my from my fellow Nigerians in the industry who face racism because of their accent.

I really depends on where you work and the part of the world you are living but that does not stop you from keeping your Nigerian accent

Sie sind sehr richtig. Es ist
so ärgerlich. Leider sind
wir nicht viel dagegen
tun.

what do u expect when you now offer diction and elocution as part of the primary and secondary school curriculum. i have three friends who are diction consultants to schools today.... though they speak pretty well, but i find it pretty hilarious a times. well, British accent speaking is now big business...many communicators are striving to develop themselvs in that area.
its a new thread, life style and a vogue.

seangy4konji:
There is dis gal on beat fm 99.9. U can't miss her. A disgusting. I tweeted her on a program telling her how disgusting she sounds and they started talking about my tweet that it was rude and had my twitter handle blocked . U can't miss that gal on 99.9 fm beat. Very irritating gal.

Maria okan I guess

Well she won the award for the best oap at the just concluded Nea just because she has a British accent

Eyaaaa third world problems!

Hmmm its not too easy to school abroad with a nigerian accent, especially high school, with the new trend of nigerian actors in hollywood and nigerian music getting world wide acknowledgment, you end up being picked on and having your accent mimicked in an effort to embarrass you, so gradually... You unconsciously start to emulate the accents of those around you in an attempt to fit in, I remember once when I was in high school I was asked to read an excerpt from a biology textbook something about animal lifestyle, I pronounced leopard... Instead of the american sounding "lepard", I said it the nigerian way with emphasis on the "eo", I was ridiculed and embarrassed so badly, up to date some of my friends still refer to it, we adapt to survive its natural, if emulating a british accent helps make life easier why not

datalossvictim1:
Eyaaaa third world problems!

so you see nothing wrong with an Anambra radio host speaking like a white redneck?

elevated2012:
I work in UK customer service industry and I try to speak very clearly, I know I have a different accent from the British and Nigerians but I still have my Nigerian accent whenever I am with Nigerians.


My accent has really differentiated my from my fellow Nigerians in the industry who face racism because of their accent.

I really depends on where you work and the part of the world you are living but that does not stop you from keeping your Nigerian accent

so not having an accent means you don't face racism.

kudos.

in any case, learn to understand the world does not revolve around you.



what works for you doesn't have to work for others.



I I I I I I I I I I I, do you not get tired of worshiping yourself?

CAMNEWTON4PRES:

so you see nothing wrong with an Anambra radio host speaking like a white redneck?

you should use examples from your own country.

tpia6:



you should use examples from your own country.

why ? im talking to a Nigerian ?

bestads:


U don come again oohh, bros the correct word na damn not dime

---I dont give a damn

hahahahaha lwkmdddddddd..... Ah the only thing that made me laugh.out.loud

My man i thut i was d only one who notices this. It got so bad one day that i was swearing at d presenta on radio. D funny ting is dat many of dem av neva board a plane talkles of traveln abroad. One was readn d news d oda day and pronuncd a yoruba name wrongly despite bn a yoruba herself. I felt lyk slaping her. Dis is xtremely bad broadcastn ethic which NBC shld ban

if you speak english the correct way, ur pronunciation will b nothing less lyk dat of an oyinbo!...the fact is that we Nigerians don't pronounce well certain wordz because our L1 or mother tongue's influence on how we pronounce is quite inevitable. if we get all the phonetics well,u will find out u ain't faking, u just pronouncing the way it should b. if u say some foreigners lived here and the don't have nija accent den dy ain't speaking the nija language the way they ought to speak it...the intonation matters alot.
Though some pple dey fake am fr akorlization sha oo...na shakara oloje..

Interesting

CAMNEWTON4PRES:

so you see nothing wrong with an Anambra radio host speaking like a white redneck?

If the Anambra radio host has never lived abroad, doesn't have Americans in his/ her social circle, and speaks in an American accent to Anambra residents, it would be totally ridiculous.

EroticAngelina:
hey! its not trash! they all follow, but do they practice it? NO

if u actually practice real British English in ur phonetics, u will have at least small trace of British accent in ur voice. u probably went to a public school

and they start it as early as nursery school OK
that's y u c some nigerians speaking like the ghanians. its not fake(tho majority are big fakes) its the way they were taught to speak and pronounce words go and read more about it and see how the system works, not to come here and start typing what u knw nothing abt.. not cool

u won that one, that is beautiful.

CAMNEWTON4PRES:
why ? im talking to a Nigerian ?

use discretion regardless who you're talking to.

its hard enough dealing with intertribal wars all the time,

What a piece of trash and racist article.

I think your state is low and so, you sounded discombobulated probably because you've been mocked at due to your deep accent.

Life is a great adventure. If you've had your first degree abroad and lived for so many years, your accent automatically changes.

Another thing is environment and of course, your classmates. So, leave us alone with your idiotic piece to make money for advertisements.

Get the most out of life now.

5thNOTE:
u won that one, that is beautiful.

u think? thank u x

tpia6:


use discretion regardless who you're talking to.

its hard enough dealing with intertribal wars all the time,

the girl I was talking to is Igbo, hence one of the most popular Nigerian-Igbo state, plus I doubt she knows where i'm from so if I said you see nothing wrong with someone(radio or tv host) speaking like a white redneck in the mefou Afamba, im pretty sure here next question would be what is mefou Afamba
so chillax, I doubt using Anambra as an example can lead in any tribal war

CFCfan:


If the Anambra radio host has never lived abroad, doesn't have Americans in his/ her social circle, and speaks in an American accent to Anambra residents, it would be totally ridiculous.

exactly that's the point since im not allowed to use Nigerian location imagine a grand pa in my village listening to his radio, how is he going to understand? like I said their audiences are local, so they should work for us