Every culture has its own strange little idiosyncrisies and every language, every dialect has its own unique/ weird conversational patterns. Living in Nigeria has, on more than one occasion, made me think of the quote I read in a Calvin and Hobbes comic :
"Even though we're both speaking English, we're not speaking the same language."
One of the stranger Nigerian-English conversational "isms" is the way in which they "welcome" people to various places. For example, in American-English, when someone knocks on your door and you invite them in you say "Welcome!" or "Welcome! Please come in." In Nigerian-English, when you arrive at someone's house or you begin work at a new company or you show up for work on any given day people say "You're welcome."
If you are just reading those words, thinking them to yourself in your head, you're probably wondering what the big deal is: "You're welcome"... those are perfectly normal words in the English language. However, to understand how strange it sounds, you have to put them in context and, more importantly, you have to imagine the correct tone.
In American-English, when you welcome someone to your home (Welcome!) you say it in a way that, as the exclamation point implies, makes it sound like a unique phrase that can stand on its own. I think the technical grammatical term is an "imperative phrase".... which means that, in American English, when you welcome someone into your home, one doesn't normally specify that "you" specifically are welcome. Its simply implied.
In Nigerian-English, they specify that, specifically "You are welcome." (Hopefully by now you're starting to see the difference). Stranger still though is the tone Nigerians use to welcome you: Imagine someone welcoming you to their house by saying "You're welcome" ... now imagine them saying it in the same tone of voice that one would use after you have said "Thank You." .... "You're welcome."
Do you hear how strange it sounds? ...Funny how two perfectly normal English words can sound so weird when put into a different context.
As I was mentioned earlier, people say you're welcome for a variety of things: when you meet someone for the first time, someone invites you into their house, you show up to work at a new company for the first time, you show up to work every day and... in the case of my newest "job," I'm even welcomed into the bathroom.
The building of my newest job is a large, well-maintained building that houses several different organizations and offices one of which is the Lagos Water Corporation. As a result, they have guards in multiple locations to prevent unwanted visitors: at the front desk, at the foot of the stairs, on the 1st floor landing, and outside the door into each of the seperate businesses/organizations. I suppose one could say I feel very secure... secure that is until I have to go to the bathroom.
Apparently, the organization that I work for is worried that people not working for the organization will use the bathroom and, to prevent this from happening, they have stationed yet another security guard at the door to the men and women's bathrooms. Of course, since I'm very obviously not a Nigerian, no one questions me as to whether or not I'm allowed to use the bathroom...they just let me walk right on in. Unfortauntely, because I'm very obviously not a Nigerian, they also feel the need to be overly polite and so, every time I walk past the guard to use the bathroom he says:
"You're welcome."
And every time this happens I think to myself....what a strange culture...a culture that welcomes me to the bathroom.
"Even though we're both speaking English, we're not speaking the same language."
One of the stranger Nigerian-English conversational "isms" is the way in which they "welcome" people to various places. For example, in American-English, when someone knocks on your door and you invite them in you say "Welcome!" or "Welcome! Please come in." In Nigerian-English, when you arrive at someone's house or you begin work at a new company or you show up for work on any given day people say "You're welcome."
If you are just reading those words, thinking them to yourself in your head, you're probably wondering what the big deal is: "You're welcome"... those are perfectly normal words in the English language. However, to understand how strange it sounds, you have to put them in context and, more importantly, you have to imagine the correct tone.
In American-English, when you welcome someone to your home (Welcome!) you say it in a way that, as the exclamation point implies, makes it sound like a unique phrase that can stand on its own. I think the technical grammatical term is an "imperative phrase".... which means that, in American English, when you welcome someone into your home, one doesn't normally specify that "you" specifically are welcome. Its simply implied.
In Nigerian-English, they specify that, specifically "You are welcome." (Hopefully by now you're starting to see the difference). Stranger still though is the tone Nigerians use to welcome you: Imagine someone welcoming you to their house by saying "You're welcome" ... now imagine them saying it in the same tone of voice that one would use after you have said "Thank You." .... "You're welcome."
Do you hear how strange it sounds? ...Funny how two perfectly normal English words can sound so weird when put into a different context.
As I was mentioned earlier, people say you're welcome for a variety of things: when you meet someone for the first time, someone invites you into their house, you show up to work at a new company for the first time, you show up to work every day and... in the case of my newest "job," I'm even welcomed into the bathroom.
The building of my newest job is a large, well-maintained building that houses several different organizations and offices one of which is the Lagos Water Corporation. As a result, they have guards in multiple locations to prevent unwanted visitors: at the front desk, at the foot of the stairs, on the 1st floor landing, and outside the door into each of the seperate businesses/organizations. I suppose one could say I feel very secure... secure that is until I have to go to the bathroom.
Apparently, the organization that I work for is worried that people not working for the organization will use the bathroom and, to prevent this from happening, they have stationed yet another security guard at the door to the men and women's bathrooms. Of course, since I'm very obviously not a Nigerian, no one questions me as to whether or not I'm allowed to use the bathroom...they just let me walk right on in. Unfortauntely, because I'm very obviously not a Nigerian, they also feel the need to be overly polite and so, every time I walk past the guard to use the bathroom he says:
"You're welcome."
And every time this happens I think to myself....what a strange culture...a culture that welcomes me to the bathroom.
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