URBAN YOUTH LANGUAGE IN BENIN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Urban youth language (UYL) is a means of identity of the urban youth sense of self and their personal classification marker. Extant studies on UYL in Nigeria concentrated more on code-switching/mixing, ethnicity, youth slang, and names with little attention paid to their linguistic expressions, identity, innovation and ideologies especially in Benin. This work was, therefore, designed to investigate the linguistic innovation and dynamics of UYL with a view to determining its relationship to linguistic identities and ideologies of Benin youth.

Dell Hyme Ethnography of Communication was adopted as the framework, while the ethnographic research design was used. Data were collected through participant observation, and unstructured interview. Ten purposively selected youth conversations were collected from 30 key informants, in Oredo, Egor and Ovia North East. Seventy-five media chat (25 each from Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) of University of Benin and Usen Polytechnic students, were observed. Data were also collected from the streets, radio and television programmes from Edo Broadcasting Service and Independent Television stations in Benin City for random use of words and phrases contained in youth language. Data were subjected to discourse analysis.

Urban youth language practices identified are; vulgarism, slang, euphemism, name customisation, swearwords, curses, insults, sexual metaphors and political jargon. Vulgarism, swearwords, curses and insults were used in music, entertainment, transportation, petty trading and among students of university and polytechnic; both in same-sex and mixed-sex talk. Some instances are: hustler, atutupoyoyo, suegbe, fineboy, tolotolo, tortoise, aka gum, eguen, and yahoo yahoo. Slangy words showing cursing, teasing, mocking are depicted in words such as mumu, suegbe. tuketuke, fine girl no pimples, mad man, and kolo. Euphemism was found in sickness, diseases, death and sex-related contexts. Examples are kelewawa, climbing the mountain, heluhelu, muegbe suegbe, for sexual act, joy-stick, ogbola, for penis, honey, deep pot, for vagina, kpeme, six feet, pay sudden debt, sleep deep, for death, STD, HIV for venereal disease. Youth identity and dynamics was depicted in name customisations which was common on social media. It featured stylistic, morphological adaptations; such as coinage, clipping, shifting, segment-swapping, compounding; code-mixing, conversion, mathematical symbolisation, the use of acronyms in words like BIU for Benson Igbinedion University, IZ for Izigan, Iziengbe, KST for Kester, Aggy for Agnes and linguistic heterogeneity. Youth ideological inclinations were products of sexual metaphors where sex organs referred to food; cucumber, oghede, to mean penis, owo, ekhwe to mean female external genitalia. Sex was used for football game; scoring a goal is to make a girl pregnant without marriage.

Urban youth language practices facilitate youth communication, linguistic innovation, dynamics, identities and ideologies.