I used to be on a bus going to Yaba after we stopped at Ketu to select up round eight Hausa-speaking girls in a bus that had area for under 5 extra passengers. It was a wrestle, however belief Danfo drivers to discover a technique to squeeze passengers in. This aged girl who was within the entrance row needed to make room so two folks may squeeze right into a seat meant for one passenger, pending when different passengers would get down at Ojota.
Then got here the gists within the Hausa language, and it was cool. Stunning girls chatting away fortunately of their native dialect in a metropolis like Lagos? Nothing may go incorrect. Not till the aged girl stated, “Why are you insulting me?” *curse phrase* “I shifted for you and made myself uncomfortable so that you each can handle right here and also you’re insulting me. You assume I don’t perceive your language?” *Extra curse phrases*. What adopted was an embarrassing silence, then a flood of apologies.
I chuckled and thought, “I’ve been right here earlier than.”
I schooled in a predominantly Hausa-speaking state. And if you’re a stranger in a land whose native language you don’t perceive, you are inclined to gravitate in the direction of folks such as you. So naturally, I had some Yoruba-speaking mates. Amongst them was this explicit buddy who beloved to speak about different folks in her native dialect(s). She may communicate 3-4 native languages and when she met somebody who may communicate them additionally, there was a excessive likelihood she’d speak about others in that dialect. For example, we may very well be strolling behind somebody and she or he’d say in Yoruba, “Take a look at this particular person’s shoe, it seems to be like his face, hahahahaha.” Or a scholar who we used to name rainbow as a result of she beloved colors may stroll into the category and she or he’d say, in Yoruba “What kind of mixture is that this? Did she look within the mirror earlier than leaving residence? Hahaha.” Or we may very well be within the again seat of a bus and she or he’d faucet me and say, in Yoruba, “Oh, this particular person has such a giant head, haha.” My buddy was not being a malicious particular person and these little gossips have been, properly… not dangerous? Whereas she discovered them humorous, they made me uncomfortable. I laughed the primary few instances, however I quickly realised we talked about folks – she doing the speaking, me the laughing – too usually and it wasn’t okay. It was changing into a factor – making enjoyable of strangers we knew nothing about. Folks minding their companies, merely present. I believed, absolutely, we may do higher? So I regularly stopped laughing at these jokes.
Past the truth that these little pockets of gossip weren’t wholesome for both of us, certainly one of my fears was what occurred on the bus to Yaba: what if the particular person/folks you’re speaking about can perceive your dialect? What in the event that they allow you to speak for some time earlier than letting they’ll hear you? As soon as, my buddy gisted me about how she had made enjoyable of a person’s head and when she was about to get down from the bus, he turned to her to let her know he understood all alongside. One other time, she had insulted a driver she assumed was a Northerner due to change and it turned out he was a Yoruba man who grew up within the North. I bear in mind laughing and saying, “This is able to train you to maintain your mouth shut.” It wasn’t all unhealthy although, one time, she and one other buddy have been happening and on about how good-looking a man was in Esan language and he may hear all of it.
Random folks understanding her jabs, insults or adulations – because the case could also be – didn’t train my buddy any lesson, till she resumed faculty after a semester break, her eyes twitching uncontrollably, her mouth tilted haphazardly practically touching her left ear, trying like she suffered a stroke on her face. It turned out that days earlier than we noticed her, my buddy had insulted an aged girl.
They’d had a row out there place and she or he had washed her – in fact, within the Yoruba language. Though the girl didn’t perceive what she was saying, she felt the load of the insult and cursed her. My buddy wakened the subsequent morning with certainly one of her eyes closing and her mouth reaching her ears.
It’s virtually a decade since we left faculty however at any time when we catch up, I remind her of that point we needed to nurse her face again to regular just because she couldn’t bridle her tongue and we snicker over it.
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Function Picture by Ketut Subiyanto for Pexels
