Lagos

A Quick Overview Of Lagos

I just watched the Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 28, 2012 (on YouTube, where else?) and noticed that he mispronounced Lagos in Nigeria at 8.19 minutes. By his own admission, Nigeria is an important country, and although Lagos is not the capital of Nigeria anymore (that would be Abuja), it is Nigeria's most populous city, and well worth pronouncing correctly.

Of course, getting it wrong is not a capital offense (except on this website), but I do remember a conversation I had with a Nigerian gentleman who said that in his view, pronouncing Nigerian names incorrectly, especially the more well-known names, was disrespectful because it showed that media, politicians etc did not consider Nigerian names important enough to learn how to say correctly.

Clearly no disrespect was meant here, but it is something to consider!

On the face of it, saying LAH/gohs seems correct, considering it comes from the Portuguese word 'lagos' meaning 'lakes', but in fact, in Nigeria, it is pronounced LAY/gohs.