A Beginners Intro to New and Old Slang
In Nairobi there are many forms of communication; the contemporary youth knows that when it comes to informal communication - verbal and non-verbal- there’s slang and there’s sheng. Both are languages shared and understood by members of a culture, and are unifying branches of speech. Slang in this case refers to colloquial terms acquired from online trends, or global media and entertainment (e.g. turn up, tripping, PIMP.) Sheng on the other hand is a constantly changing mixture of swahili and english used by everyone from the kange’s (matatu tout) to the school boy. In this article we focus on Nairobi Jamaican slang for the global generation and some of the words that have made it from text speak to the actual way we speak every day.
This is a beginners guide and is in no way extensive. Look at it as some tips to navigating your way through the difficult world of youth speech. Think of it as a beginners guide for those who don’t know, and a catalogue for those who do.
Jamaican slang has gotten a lot of traction around Kenya over the past decade or so, undoubtedly due to the popularity of the dancehall music that we love to wind and grind to so much. It is not uncommon to find a yout (youth) who refuses to speak any of that outdated Queen’s English, preferring instead to pose as some kind of a Yardie (which according to the urban dictionary is Eighties British slang for a criminal gang consisting predominantly of Jamaicans). Luckily for us, the dancehall artist Vybz Kartel’s skin bleaching antics have not caught on yet, so fingers crossed the fashion stops at language and music.
wagwann? - greeting in the Patois dialect of Jamaica arising from the phrase “What’s going on?”
Naa mean? - do you know what I am talking about? You get me?
Mi bredrin - this would translate as “My brethren” and can be used to represent someone from your family, your gang or even someone that you have issues with (it can sound vaguely menacing if said in the right tone)
Overstand - a Kenyan favourite. Overstanding is like understanding only better. According to the Urban Dicitonary: In order to innovate or redesign, you must overstand.
Wamptodem? - Where did they go?
What the Bombaclat? (can be interchanged with Bloodclaat or Raas Claat) - The definitions vary with some people saying the Bom in Bombaclaat refers to our derrier hence meaning underwear while others specifying we are talkng about a blood cloth hence a female sanitary napkin. The terms can be used in the same way as the more common WTF (WTBC) but somehow carries much more gravitas when said.
Big Man Ting - this one is pretty self-explanatory. It’s what you say to the yout when it’s a grownup business that they should keep out of.
Flassing (sometimes spelled as Flossing) - this is about spending big, showing off at the club with the phones and the bling and the chains and the scantily clad gyrating women.
Gyalis - A Romeo, a Don Giovanni, a man for whom one woman cannot be enough and who must have different ones hanging off his arms every night
For the non-dancehall English speaking youth of Nairobi there are many other rare and wonderful terms that they use that would leave most of us scratching their heads. Here are a few that we managed to translate:
“Turn up” refers to the act of getting loose, being wild and potentially engaging in sexual activity. Generally large amounts of alcohol, and drugs are involved combined with generally foolish behaviour.
“Turnt Up” is the noun instead of “turned up” for unclear reasons and describes the state of being wild and highly inebriated. If something is turnt up then it is wild, crazy happening, etc…
“Funky,” referred to body odour first, but thanks to jazz buffs its meaning has transformed to signify “the best.”
“Lawl” is the interesting phonetic pronunciation of LOL, meaning ‘laugh out loud’. Technology’s intrusion into the actual construction of language is marked by the advent of the acronym vocabulary. TTYL (talk to you later), and IDK (I don’t know) are no longer used only for texting; they can be used in real conversations. Let’s not forget “lawlz” (LOL plural, like LOLs.)
“Trip” first meant a psychedelic experience resulting from LSD. Then it generalised to mean any experience on any drug, and beyond that to any type of kicks from anything.
dang –A mighty fine interjection used to express disappointment or surprise.
The list goes on and we have tried to pintpoint only the Jamaican terms that are actually used on the streets of Nairobi. If we have missed any important ones, do tell!
Language, especially in Nairobi with its diverse cultures and classes, is a dynamic entity constantly morphing from one ting to another. The key to understanding a place is learning the language but in our increasingly global and mixed communities you can only start with the basics and hope this leads to a deeper understanding.
