By Chinua Asuzu
The short answer is Yes.
Our dialect of English in Nigeria has been historically British, but increasingly it’s becoming an interesting blend of American and British dialects, with a healthy dose of standard Nigerian English.
American English is now the dominant dialect in the English-speaking world. The ownership of the English language has moved across the Atlantic from the British Isles to North America.
If you want to get real and not fight a losing battle with Pyrrhic repercussions, you’ll acknowledge this decades-old trend.
American culture and dialect have been exerting enormous influence, if not pressure, on British English.
Britons themselves have been rapidly adopting American expressions, preferring them to British expressions. Paul Rylance, Writing and Drafting in Legal Practice (OUP, 2012), 73.
So don’t stay married to your inherited British English—why should you weep louder than the bereaved?
Unknown to many, Nigerian English is going through a Linguistic Brexit—dropping British English in favor of ABN English, a happy amalgam of the best that American, British, and Nigerian English have to offer.
Computers speak American.
The Internet speaks American.
Most movies speak American.
Most new English learners from non-English-speaking countries, including the hugely populated Asian countries, learn American.
Most of our millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha speak and write American.
Popular culture speaks American.
You already speak some American, albeit unwittingly.
More borrowings take place from American to British than from British to American.
Chinua Asuzu, Uncommon Law of Learned Writing (Partridge, 2023), 507–508.
