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Lesson 1.2: Same language, different rules

About 15 minutes

Learning objective

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain why sharing English with Nigerian partners does not guarantee shared meaning, and recognize common Nigerian English expressions that Americans often misread.

English is Nigeria's official language, and many Nigerian business people speak and write it fluently. It is easy to assume that means nothing gets lost. In practice, the words are shared, but many of the rules for using them are not.

Linguists call these rules pragmatics: how people use language to greet, request, refuse, show respect and signal meaning. Two people can speak the same language and still follow different pragmatic rules. Americans who have worked with British colleagues know this already. The same is true, often more so, between U.S. and Nigerian business English.

Nigerian English is a full, established variety of English with its own vocabulary, idioms and conventions, just as American English is. It is not "broken" or "informal" English. Many Nigerian professionals also speak Nigerian Pidgin and one or more of the country's many languages, such as Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo. They move between them depending on the setting and the person.

Why it matters

When you assume shared language means shared rules, you read your own meaning into your partner's words. That is how small misunderstandings start, and over a long negotiation they add up.

Words that mean something different

  • "I'm coming" usually means "I will be right back, please wait," not "I am on my way to you."

  • "Well done" is often a greeting to someone at work, not praise for a finished task.

  • "Flash me" means "give me a missed call," so the other person can call you back.

  • "Next tomorrow" means the day after tomorrow.

  • "How far?" is an informal greeting, or a request for a status update.

  • "Sorry" often expresses sympathy, not an admission of fault.

  • "Go-slow" means a traffic jam.

  • "Dash" means a gift or tip.

None of these is hard to learn. The risk is not knowing that a difference exists. If a partner writes "I'm coming" on WhatsApp and then goes quiet for a while, an American may decide the partner is unreliable. The partner meant exactly what they said, in their variety of English.

Rules that differ

Vocabulary is only the surface. Bigger differences sit in how messages are built. In many Nigerian business settings:

  • A message opens with a greeting and a personal courtesy before business. Skipping it can read as cold.

  • Titles matter. Dr., Engr., Barr., Arc., Chief, Alhaji and Alhaja signal earned respect, and many people use them in business until they invite you to do otherwise.

  • A formal register is common in writing. A letter that sounds stiff to an American may sound properly respectful to the reader.

  • Refusal is often softened or implied rather than stated outright.

These are tendencies, not rules for every person. A young founder at a Lagos technology firm may write more like a U.S. startup than a long-established family distributor in Kano does. Regional background, industry, age and international experience all play a part. Read the person, not just the country.

Good practice

When you are unsure what a phrase means, ask. "Just so I understand correctly, do you mean...?" is respectful in any culture and shows that you care about getting it right.

Watch out

Avoid U.S. idioms and sports metaphors in your own writing: "ballpark," "touch base," "circle back," "hit it out of the park." They are hard to read for anyone outside the U.S. and can make your message seem vague. Message Check flags these under rule NG-CLR-01.

The same habit helps your partner read you. Write dates with the month in words, because many countries put the day first and "03/04" can mean March 4 or 3 April (rule NG-CLR-02). Give times in both zones. West Africa Time is five hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time in summer and six hours ahead in winter.

Ghana, Nigeria's neighbor and DealDialect's next market, also uses English as its official language, with its own local expressions and conventions. The principle carries across West Africa and well beyond it: same official language, different rules of the conversation.

Worked example: a WhatsApp chat between Tom, a North Carolina valve maker, and Engr. Okafor, a procurement lead in Port Harcourt, while they set up a call.

Before

Engr. Okafor: Good afternoon, Tom. Let me check the specs with my team.

I'm coming.

[some time later]

Tom: Are you still coming? I've been waiting on the call link.

After

Engr. Okafor: Good afternoon, Tom. Let me check the specs with my team.

I'm coming.

Tom: Thank you, Engr. Okafor. Please take your time. I will be here when you are ready.

What changed: Tom first read "I'm coming" as "I am about to join the call," so the wait felt like a broken promise. Once he knew it meant "please hold on, I will be right back," the frustration disappeared, and his reply showed patience instead of impatience.

Check yourself

  1. 1. During a site visit, a Nigerian colleague passes you and says "Well done." What is the most likely meaning?
  2. 2. Which statement best describes Nigerian English?
  3. 3. You draft: "Let's touch base on 03/04 at 10." What is the best fix for a partner in Lagos?

Apply it

Go back to the three unanswered messages you listed in Lesson 1.1. Circle any idioms, abbreviations, numeric dates or single time zones. For each message, write what the reader might have heard, then rewrite the one line most likely to have caused confusion.

From DealDialect (dealdialect.com) by Ayomide Adeyeye, licensed CC BY 4.0.