An English friend asked me in summer
2010, why do Nigerians say things twice? She proceeded to give the
following examples: do-do, chin-chin, puff-puff. Her husband who was listening
joined in and mentioned moin-moin. This got me thinking and I decided to do a
research into this phenomenon.
Here are my findings:
Do-do – fried plantain
Chin-chin – fried dough chips
Puff-puff – round fried dough
Kuli-kuli – fried peanut ball
Dun-dun – fried yam chips
Wole-wole – sanitary inspectors
Paja-paja – pins and needles
Maja-maja – highway traffic inspectors
Die-die – little by little
Pata-pata – completely
Laba-laba – butterfly
Pari-pari – the end
Seke-seke - chains
Lopo-lopo – very much
Nla-nla – massive
Kia-kia – quickly
Jedi-jedi – pile
Dogba-dogba – equally
Lai-lai – never
Mago-mago - deception
Gbonmo-gbonmo – kidnappers
Tun-tun – new
Tu-tu – cold
Te-te
- quick
Ke-ke – bicycle
Re-re – good
Some are English words which we have
domesticated and which may have slightly different meanings such as:
Chop-chop - food or eating
Suffer-suffer - sufferhead
Quick-quick - quickly
Fast-fast - quickly
Now-now – hurry up
Begi-begi - scrounger
Cry-cry – cry baby
Yahoo-yahoo - fraudster
Hurry-hurry - quickly
Holy-holy – self righteous
Sharp-sharp – smart alec
Follow-follow – indecisive
Why we repeat words is beyond me. Has this
got to do with our fast pace approach to life? Is it to buttress what we say? Is it to
exert fear? Or is it just a Yoruba thing?
Now to my English friend, Helen who brought
this to my attention in the first place, English people do have theirs too.
What about Pa-pa and Paw-paw.
Finally, one of the most popular songs in
Nigeria has the following lyrics:
Eh eh eh, eh, my God is good o
My God is good o, my God is good o
Everything na double, double
Na double, double
Whilst I do not want to visit the meaning
and depth of the song for now, I cannot but notice an extra double in the chorus. Double explains itself, there isn't a need to
say double-double. However, this is Nigeria, double has to be repeated. PostcardfromLagos
Photo from Avartsy Cooking
