The Use of Reduplicatives by Some Nigerian Users of English

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According to Richard Nordquist, 'reduplicative' is a word that contains two identical or very similar parts. Such words are also called 'tautonyms'. Then, the process of forming reduplicatives is known as 'reduplication' and the repeated element in that process is called a 'reduplicant'.

'higgledy':                        reduplicant        (the individual element)
'piggledy':                        reduplicant        (the individual element)
'higgledy' + 'piggledy'    reduplication     (the process)
'higgledy piggledy':        reduplicative      (the product)

Reduplication is a global phenomenon; it's found in several languages across the world. However, in this post, my focus is on Yoruba, a language spoken in West Africa, by the ethnic Yoruba people of South Western Nigeria. According to Wikipedia, "The number of Yoruba speakers is estimated at between 45 and 55 million."

I'm proudly a Yoruba man, with rich knowledge of the language (Yoruba), as well as of how the users of the language use English as a second language (L2). For many years, I've observed how several Yoruba users of English eccentrically use reduplicatives in their English (spoken and written). So, this post specifically focuses on that category of English users - I'm not sure if non-Yoruba Nigerian users of English use reduplicatives in their English the way it's used by this unique group of people; the Yoruba.

Before talking about the peculiar way most Yoruba speakers of English use reduplicatives in their English, I'll like to let you see how reduplicatives are used in Yoruba language. Yoruba is a very beautiful and rich language and one of those elements that enrich it is 'reduplicatives'. The language, just like many other world languages, has an abundance of reduplicatives. Examples include "méta méta", "gìrà gìrà", "yóñmo yòñmo", "seré seré","réde rède", "jaku jaku", etc. This set of words is used, largely, for emphasis in our speaking and our writing. Unfortunately, however, several Yoruba users of English commonly carry over this deep-seated aspect of their Mother Tongue (MT) knowledge into the English they use, such that you hear them say (or write) things like these: 

(a) We attend their service every TWO TWO days.
(b) She said I should check on the children every FIVE FIVE minutes.
(c) The man likes dating YOUNG YOUNG girls.
(d) That street has a lot of FINE FINE houses.

This kind of reduplicative usage (induced by the users' MT) is unacceptable in standard English. The acceptable, standard usage will be such without the repeated elements:

(a) We attend their service every TWO days.
(b) She said I should check on the children every FIVE minutes.
(c) The man likes dating YOUNG girls.
(d) That street has a lot of FINE houses.

Interestingly, English Language has its unique kinds of reduplication, such as, 
(a) 'hoity toity'
(b) 'fuddy duddy', 
(c) 'hocus pocus', 
(d) 'namby pamby', 
(e) 'higgledy piggledy', 
(f) 'hustle bustle', 
(g) 'tutti fruity', 
(h) 'wishy washy', 
(i) 'argy bargy', 
(j) 'shilly shally', etc. 

Language learning can be really interesting!

So, what other examples of non-English reduplicatives can you give from your language (Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa. Ewe, Afrikan, Arabic, Spanish, Urdu, Swahili, Tamil,etc.) and what do they mean? I'd like to hear from you.

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