FULL LIST: Mama put, danfo, tokunbo make Oxford Dictionary’s updated version

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has released an updated version of the widely used dictionary for January, 2020 — with 29 new Nigerian expressions making the cut.

The list, released earlier this year, featured several words used by popular authors including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer and Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s Nobel laureate.

Danica Salazar, world English Editor of the dictionary, noted the addition of the new words was to “give flavour of English-speaking rooted in a Nigerian experience”.

“By focusing on contemporary language in this update, and adding words and phrases that form part of the everyday vocabulary of today’s Nigerians, we hope to give a flavour of English-speaking which, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie put it, is rooted in a Nigerian experience,” Salazar said in a release note.

“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.

“By taking ownership of English and using it as their own medium of expression, Nigerians have made, and are continuing to make, a unique and distinctive contribution to English as a global language.”

Some of the new words and expressions on the list include ‘mama put’, ‘Kannywood’, ‘chop-chop’ among others.