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More Nigerian and Ghanaian Words Make it into the Oxford Dictionary

Five years after the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added 29 Nigerian loanwords, 20 more terms from Nigeria and Ghana have been included. The Nigerian entries include popular items like suya (beef kebab), adire (local fabric), and cybercrime-related terms such as 419, Yahoo, and Yahoo boy. Ghana’s contributions feature local cuisine like banku, the dance style azonto, the music genre Burger Highlife, the term burger (for emigrants), and terms like galamsey and galamseyers, referring to illegal mining and its practitioners. These additions highlight the growing influence of West African culture on global language.

Source: SOAS University of London

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