EXPANDING THE DOMAINS OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE: THE ISSUE OF COLOUR NAMING IN SOME INDIGENOUS NIGERIAN LANGUAGES

Abstract

This paper discusses the expanding domain of English in Nigeria, a country where English is its official language. Schmied (1991) explores the domains where English has impacted upon some African languages. One domain he did not include was that of colour naming. This paper investigates the impact of English on speakers of some indigenous Nigerian languages, with emphasis on Hausa, in relation to the languages’ colour terms. It finds that some English colour terms have been loaned into these languages. The terms commonly loaned are blue, and to a lesser extent yellow, gold and silver. The loaned terms have some of their phonemes adapted to follow the phonemic patterns of the indigenous languages. The most common phonemic adaptation that features in the languages is the split consonant feature. Examples of phoneme adaptations of English colour terms in some Nigerian languages include, ibulu for blue in Igala, bulu in Hausa and ehbulu in Esan, while yellow is yalo in Hausa. This paper concludes that with the global influence of English in world, more domains would be impacted upon by the language.