Do Nigerians really talk like that?

[kelly5078]

In my stint as a headhunter some time back I talked to a number of Nigerians. None of them talked at all like that.

[istara]

@astro

It’s not made up just for the spam. It’s formalized, ultra-polite style that is (IMO) directly connected in form to Victorian english of the post-colonial era. The tone of the spam letter is very similar that of the the letter my father received from his ex-houseboy, Sabid Peter after we moved back to the states. Sabid Peter had gotten this girl in Lagos pregnant and needed some cash to handle the situation.

This was in the mid sixties and I didn’t read the letter until years later in the late 80’s after my father died. The tone was very sincere and polite and quite similar in language style to the spam letters. The style is not made up out of thin air.

Subcontinental Indians write like this - they use a bizarre, archaic but very formally polite form of English. Reading the newspapers here you can nearly always tell whether the writer is Indian, Arab, or “Other English” (this inclues Australian, UK, American, Canadian, South African, NZ - where idiom is far more uniform in news journalism) without reading their names. You can only really differentiate between “Other English” when it comes to slang - eg “heck” instantly denotes a merkin.

Indian job application letters - and some Arab ones - sound just like this. It’s full of “your good self” “your most-esteemed company” lots of mumbly-humbly pie crap. As soon as I receive an email with the phrase “most-esteemed company” in it I trash it without finishing it. Newspaper articles are full of adjectives like “delightful” “very excellent” “trendy” and words like “avail”.

There is also - though this may be more an Arab thing (it could even be put in by thick Arab subeditors) a tendency to use “the” for everything. A big advertising hoarding here had “The Magazine For The Youth” - yet again displaying that stunning combination of arrogance and ignorance that we enjoy on a daily basis here. Just what would it have cost them to run the tagline past a native English speaker before going to print?

Migrant indians - eg Brits of Indian origin who have grown up and been educated in UK schools - don’t speak/write like this of course, it is a uniquely subcontinental thing.

[gouda]

@istara

Migrant indians - eg Brits of Indian origin who have grown up and been educated in UK schools - don’t speak/write like this of course, it is a uniquely subcontinental thing.

Bang on the proverbial nail! I see job applications every now and then, and this form of writing just puts me off… it actually comes across as slimy to me, even if the writer is just being overly-polite.

Things are changing slowly in our larger cities though, where this form of writing - dammed if I ever met anyone who actually spoke like that - isn’t even discussed, let along taught.

[elmwood]

@istara

Indian job application letters - and some Arab ones - sound just like this. It’s full of “your good self” “your most-esteemed company” lots of mumbly-humbly pie crap. As soon as I receive an email with the phrase “most-esteemed company” in it I trash it without finishing it. Newspaper articles are full of adjectives like “delightful” “very excellent” “trendy” and words like “avail”.

You know … you’re right!

I run an urban planning-related Web site, and get a lot of e-mail from India from people looking for jobs, as if I’m actually an employment agency. The letters are very flowery, much like the Nigerian e-mails, but quite more humble and submissive in tone.

E-mail messages from India asking for help are often written in the imperative form, as if it’s a command; “You will kindly tell me where I may seek information regarding the architecture of Louis Sullivan blah blah blah …”

All e-mail from india is addressed to “Sir.”