‘BAD SHAID’: JENIFA’S ENGLISH AND DE-AFFRICATION

by Oríloyè Saheedah

I already gave a comprehensive explanation of phonological processes  in one of the episodes of this series (Read: JENIFA’S ENGLISH UNDER PHONOLOGICAL SCRUTINY).

Bad shaid, why is all ov of you laving at Jeniva upandan! All ov you are like àtùpà, sorry lantern, that is giving light to other people and leave his own bottom inside darknez. How many of us, for instance, pronounce the words ‘church, chair, child’ correctly? Most of us in Naija, ignore the /ʧ/, tsaaa sound because it is not present in our mother tongue and we just interchange it with the sound which is nearly similar to it and that is the consonant /ʃ/ shaaa as in Ṣeun, Ṣadé… So we say ‘shọosh, shie/shia, shaid’ instead of church, chair and child.

This phonological process of changing an affricate (the sound /ʧ/) for a fricative (the sound /ʃ/) is known as De-affrication. You know ‘activate’ is ‘to make a device work’ and ‘deactivate’ is ‘to stop it from working. ‘Merit’ is ‘advantage’ while ‘demerit’ is ‘disadvantage’. Just like that, /ʧ/ is an affricate but when you change it to a sound like /ʃ/, it is no more an affricate for it has been ‘de-affricated’. And the process? De-affrication!

Though, Sisi Jenifa, sometimes go beyond the limit and even exchange this fricative for /s/ which makez you lavin like perfet perzin. Here are the examples of words wherein Jenifa deployed the phonological process of de-affrication and the correct forms of each are mentioned respectively:

shaid [ʃaid]      for      Child /aild/

sok  [sok]             for              Choke /əƱk/

sicken [ʃikin]       for               Chicken /ikin/

shop [ʃop]           for                Chop /ap/

Chicken /ikin/    for               sicken [sikin]

kisin  [kisin]          for             Kitchen /kiin/

ris[ris]                 for               Reach/ri:/

 sip shaid [sip ʃaid]      for       Cheap child /i:p aild/

shase [ʃes]                  for       Chase /eis/

sans  [sans]                  for       Chance /a:ns/

 

You iyaff see Jenifa’s mistake in deaffricasan, don’t come iyya sop Jenifa talk for mouth like say you sef no dey speak intonasan o! More still coming, kip up for more episodes, lovers of language and comedy!

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