Nigerian Pidgin

English-based creole languages

Not to be confused with Nigerian English.

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)

This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (December 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Nigerian Pidgin" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

(Learn how and when to remove this message)

Nigerian Pidgin

Naijá (languej)
Naija
Native to| Nigeria

Native speakers

| L1: 4.7 million
L2: 116 million[1]

Language family

English Creole

* Atlantic
* West African Pidgin English
* Nigerian Pidgin

Writing system

| Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3| `pcm`
Glottolog| `nige1257`

Nigerian Pidgin, also known simply as Pidgin or as Naijá in scholarship, is an English-based creole language spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria. The language is sometimes referred to as Pijin or Vernacular. Coming into existence during the 17th and 18th centuries as a result of contact between Britons and Africans involved in the Atlantic slave trade,[2] in the 2010s, a common orthography was developed for Pidgin which has been gaining significant popularity in giving the language a harmonized writing system.[3][4]

It can be spoken as a pidgin, a creole, dialect or a decreolised acrolect by different speakers, who may switch between these forms depending on the social setting.[5] Variations of what this article refers to as "Nigerian Pidgin" are also spoken across West and Central Africa, in countries such as Benin, Ghana, and Cameroon.[6]

## Status

[edit]

Nigerian Pidgin is commonly used throughout the country, but it has not been granted official status. Pidgin breaks the communication barrier between different ethnic groups and it is widely spoken throughout Nigeria.[7]

In 2011, Google launched a search interface in Pidgin.[8] In 2017, BBC started BBC News Pidgin to provide services in Pidgin.[2]

## Variations

[edit]

Many of the 250 or more ethnic groups in Nigeria can converse in the language, though many speakers will use words from their native tongues. For example:

* Yorùbá ṣebi (pronounced 'sheh-bi') is often used at the start or end of an intonated sentence or question: "You are coming, right?" becomes Ṣebi you dey come?[citation needed]
* Yorùbá abi (another variant of the words ṣebi and ba)
* Igbo unu, a plural second-person pronoun equivalent to the English term "you people", has been adopted as una. For example, Una dey mad in Nigerian Pidgin means "You people are crazy."[9] Unu has also found its way to Jamaican patois and Sranantongo (Surinamese Creole) with the same meaning as in Nigerian Pidgin.
* Igbo biko, meaning "please." For example, the sentence Biko free me means "Please leave me alone".
* Yoruba oga equivalent to the English term "my boss or my mentor", has been adopted from the Yoruba word oga.
* Hausa ba at the end of an intonated sentence or question: you no wan come, ba? means "You don't want to come, right?"
* Portuguese sabe(sabi) at the beginning or middle of a sentence to mean: "to know". For example; why you no go sabi the man? means "How can you say you do not know the man?"

Nigerian Pidgin also varies from place to place. Dialects of Nigerian Pidgin may include the Sapele-Warri-Ughelli dialect that has majorly influenced large parts of Nigeria, Benin City dialect that has its influence from Bini language, Port Harcourt dialect that has elements of the mixed tribes in Rivers State, Lagos (particularly in Ajegunle influenced by sizeable Niger Deltan populace); and Onitsha varieties that draws influence from Igbo language.[7]

Nigerian Pidgin is most widely spoken in the oil state Niger Delta where most of its population speak it as their first language.[10] There are accounts of pidgin being spoken first in colonial Nigeria before being adopted by other countries along the West African coast.[11]

While Pidgin is spoken by many, there are wide swathes of Nigeria where Pidgin is not spoken or understood, especially among those without secular education in core northern parts — Gombe State, Yobe State — of Nigeria.[citation needed]

## Relationship to other languages and dialects

[edit]

### Similarity to Caribbean Creoles

[edit]

Nigerian Pidgin, along with the various pidgin and creole languages of West Africa, share multiple similarities to the various English-based Creoles found in the Caribbean. Linguists[who?] posit that this is because most of the enslaved that were taken to the New World were of West African descent. The pronunciation and accents often differ a great deal, mainly due to the extremely heterogeneous mix of African languages present in the West Indies, but if written on paper or spoken slowly, the creole languages of the Caribbean are for the most part mutually intelligible with the creole languages of West Africa.[12] The presence of repetitive phrases in Caribbean Creole such as su-su (gossip) and pyaa-pyaa (sickly) mirror the presence of such phrases in West African languages such as bam-bam, which means "complete" in the Yoruba language. Repetitious phrases are also very present in Nigerian Pidgin, such as koro-koro meaning "clear vision", yama-yama meaning "disgusting", and doti-doti meaning "garbage".

Furthermore, the use of words of West African origin in Surinamese Creole (Sranan Tongo) and Jamaican Patois, such as unu and Bajan dialect wunna or una – West African Pidgin (meaning "you people", a word that comes from the Igbo word unu or unuwa also meaning "you people"), display some of the interesting similarities between the English pidgins and creoles of West Africa and the English pidgins and creoles of the Caribbean, as does the presence of words and phrases that are identical in the languages on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Me a go tell dem (I'm going to tell them) and make we (let us).

A copula deh or dey is found in both Caribbean Creole and Nigerian Pidgin English. The phrase We dey foh London would be understood by both a speaker of Creole and a speaker of Nigerian Pidgin to mean "We are in London" (although the Jamaican is more likely to say Wi de a London and the Surinamese way is Wi de na London.) The word originates from the Igbo word di meaning the same thing and pronounced similarly[citation needed]: anu di na ofe (literally "meat is in pot") and anyi di na london (lit. "we are in London"). Other similarities, such as pikin (Nigerian Pidgin for "child") and pikney or pickney (used in islands like Jamaica, St.Vincent, Antigua and St. Kitts, akin to the standard-English pejorative/epithet pickaninny) and chook (Nigerian Pidgin for "poke" or "stab") which corresponds with the Trinidadian creole word juk, and also corresponds to chook used in other West Indian islands.[13]

### Connection to Portuguese language

[edit]

Being derived partly from the present day Edo/Delta and other south South area of Nigeria, there are still some words left over from the Portuguese language in pidgin English (Portuguese ships traded slaves from the Bight of Benin). For example, you sabi do am? means "do you know how to do it?". Sabi means "to know" or "to know how to", just as "to know" is saber in Portuguese.[14] (According to the monogenetic theory of pidgins, sabir was a basic word in Mediterranean Lingua Franca, brought to West Africa through Portuguese pidgin. An English cognate is savvy.) Also, pikin or "pickaninny" comes from the Portuguese words pequeno and pequenino, which mean "small" and "small child" respectively.[15]

### Nigerian English

[edit]

Similar to the Caribbean Creole situation, Nigerian Pidgin is mostly used in informal conversations. Nigerian Pidgin has no status as an official language. Nigerian English is used in politics, education, science, and media.[16] In Nigeria, English is acquired through formal education.[16] As English has been in contact with multiple different languages in Nigeria, Nigerian English has become much more prominent and is very similar to both American and British English, and it is often referred to as a group of different sub-varieties.[16] Although there is not a formal description of Nigerian English, scholars agree that Nigerian English is a recognizable and unique variety of English.[16]

## Phonology

[edit]

Nigerian Pidgin, like many pidgins and creoles, has a simpler phonology than the superstrate language. It has 23 consonants, seven vowels, and two tones.[17]

### Consonants

[edit]

| Labial | Alveolar | Post-
alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labial-velar | Glottal

|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Nasal |  | m |  | n |  |  |  | ŋ |  |
Plosive | p | b | t | d |  |  |  | k | ɡ | kp | ɡb |
Affricate |  |  |  |  | tʃ | dʒ |  |  |  |  |
Tap |  |  | r |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ |  |  |  |  | h |
Approximant |  |  | l |  |  | j |  | w |  |

### Vowels

[edit]

| Front | Back

|
|

Close | i | u
High-mid | e | o
Low-mid | ɛ | ɔ
Open | a

### Tones

[edit]

Nigerian Pidgin has been described as a tonal language, having a high tone and a low tone. The high tone can be written with an acute accent, and the low tone, though typically left unmarked, can be written with a grave accent.[18] Additionally, monosyllabic high-tone words shift into a high falling tone before a pause.[18]

Pidgin Word
(tones fully marked) | Tone pattern | English Meaning

|
|

/bàbá/ | LH | father
/bábà/ | HL | Roman Catholic priest
/fádá/ | HH | father
/fàdá/ | LH | Roman Catholic 'father'
/sìsí/ | LH | young maid
/sísì/ | HL | sixpence (5 kobo)

However, this has been contested by subsequent linguists, due to variance in pitch intonation on lexemes, especially for questions.[19] One rival suggestion is that Nigerian Pidgin "is something of a pitch-accent language in which, given a word there may be only one high tone, or one sequence thereof in opposition to one low sequence";[19] downdrift is attested in the intonational system.[19]

Most written texts in Nigerian Pidgin do not show any tonal markings, and do not reflect any lexical pitch differences.[20]

## See also

[edit]

* Nigeria portal
* Languages portal

* Krio
* Pichinglis
* Languages of Nigeria

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Nigerian Pidgin at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
2. ^ a b "BBC Pidgin service launched in Nigeria". 2017-08-21. Archived from the original on 2023-09-22. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
3. ^ Ofulue, Christine I.; Esizimetor, David O. "GUIDE TO STANDARD NAIJÁ ORTHOGRAPHY. An NLA Harmonized Writing System for Common Naijá Publications". IFRA-Nigeria - French Institute for Research in Africa. Archived from the original on 2023-01-01. Retrieved 2017-02-06.
4. ^ Esizimetor, D. O. (2009). What Orthography for Naijá? Paper delivered at the Conference on Naijá organised by the Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique (IFRA), July 07–10, 2009, University of Ibadan Conference Centre.
5. ^ Faraclas (1996), Introduction.
6. ^ Fitimi, Prince; Ojitobome, Afinotan. "The Effect of the Nigerian Pidgin English on the Academic Performance of University Students in Nigeria. Acase Study of National Open University of Nigeria Students in Benin Study Centre". Academia.edu. Archived from the original on 2022-05-13. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
7. ^ a b Goglia, Francesco (2010). "Nigerian Pidgin English". Language Contact Manchester. Archived from the original on 2018-08-01. Retrieved 2018-07-17.
8. ^ Gharib, Malaka (20 November 2018). "Why Prince Charles Said 'God Don Butta My Bread!' In Nigeria". NPR. Archived from the original on 27 February 2023. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
9. ^ "MANIAC | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary". back.carthousa.tk. Archived from the original on 2021-05-21. Retrieved 2021-05-21.
10. ^ Frances Ayenbi, Oti (2014-06-01). "Language regression in Nigeria". Éducation et sociétés plurilingues (36): 51–64\. doi:10.4000/esp.136. ISSN 1127-266X. Archived from the original on 2021-12-27. Retrieved 2021-12-27.
11. ^ Igboanusi, Herbert (February 2008). "Empowering Nigerian Pidgin: a challenge for status planning?". World Englishes. 27 (1): 68–82\. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.2008.00536.x. ISSN 0883-2919. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
12. ^ Salikoko Sangol Mufwene, Creole languages at the Encyclopædia Britannica
13. ^ Emmaolu, Akinsanya. "THE EFFECT OF THE". Archived from the original on 2022-05-13. Retrieved 2021-12-27.
14. ^ "Pidgin english origin - english pidgins include nigerian pidgin". meisten-verliebt.com (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 2021-05-21. Retrieved 2021-05-21.
15. ^ Faraclas (1996), p. 3.
16. ^ a b c d Florence Agbo, Ogechi; Plag, Ingo (2020-12-11). "The Relationship of Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin in Nigeria: Evidence from Copula Constructions in Ice-Nigeria". Journal of Language Contact. 13 (2): 351–388\. doi:10.1163/19552629-bja10023. ISSN 1877-1491. S2CID 226299218. Archived from the original on 2021-01-29. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
17. ^ Faraclas (1996), pp. 248–249.
18. ^ a b Mafeni 1971.
19. ^ a b c Elugbe, Ben (10 December 2008). "Nigerian Pidgin English: phonology". In Mesthrie, Rajend; Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W. (eds.). 4 Africa, South and Southeast Asia. Varieties of English. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 55–66\. ISBN 978-3-11-020842-9. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
20. ^ Akande & Salami 2021, pp. 177–200, Mensah, Eyo, Ukaegbu, Eunice and Nyong, Benjamin. "Chapter 6: Towards a working orthography of Nigerian Pidgin". sfn error: no target: CITEREFAkande_&_Salami2021 (help)

## Bibliography

[edit]

* Faraclas, Nicholas (1996). "Nigerian Pidgin" (PDF). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-02291-6.
* Akhimien, Eronmonsele Pius (1 November 2004). "The use of 'How are you?' in Nigerian society". Journal of Pragmatics. 36 (11): 2055–2058\. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2004.02.003. ISSN 0378-2166.
* Mazzoli, Maria (2013). Copulas in Nigerian Pidgin (PDF) (Doctoral Thesis). Università degli studi di Padova. hdl:11577/3422599.
* Ihemere, Kelechukwu U. (31 December 2006). "A Basic Description and Analytic Treatment of Noun Clauses in Nigerian Pidgin" (PDF). Nordic Journal of African Studies. 15 (3): 296–313\. doi:10.53228/njas.v15i3.29. ISSN 1459-9465. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 June 2007. Retrieved 14 April 2007.
* Mafeni, Bernard (1971). "Nigerian Pidgin". In Spencer, John (ed.). The English language in West Africa. London: Longman. pp. 95–112\. ISBN 0582522153.
* Shnukal, Anna; Marchese, Lynell (1 January 1983). "Creolization of Nigerian Pidgin English: A progress report". English World-Wide. 4 (1): 17–26\. doi:10.1075/eww.4.1.03shn. ISSN 0172-8865. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
* Ernest Edjeren. 2009. "Single Language: The Soul Of Nations' Prosperity"
* Akande, Akinmade T.; Salami, Oladipo, eds. (25 October 2021). "Current Trends in Nigerian Pidgin English: A Sociolinguistic Perspective". Current Trends in Nigerian Pidgin English. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. doi:10.1515/9781501513541. ISBN 978-1-5015-1354-1.

## External links

[edit]

Nigerian Pidgin edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* Media related to Nigerian Pidgin at Wikimedia Commons
* University of Puerto Rico, Nigerian Pidgin materials Archived 2020-08-04 at the Wayback Machine
* A Dictionary of Nigerian English (circulation draft); Blench, Roger. 2005 (Internet Archive)
* Introduction to Nigerian Pidgin (University of Hawaii)

* v
* t
* e

English-based creole languages

Africa|

* Krio (Sierra Leone)
* Aku (The Gambia)
* Merico
* West Africa
* Cameroon
* Ghana
* Liberia
* Nigeria
* Pichinglis (Equatorial Guinea)

Caribbean|

| Eastern|

* Antigua and Barbuda
* Anguilla
* Montserrat
* Saint Kitts
* Barbados
* Grenada
* Gullah (United States)
* Afro-Seminole Creole (United States)
* Guyana
* Kwinti (Suriname)
* Ndyuka (French Guiana and Suriname)
* Aluku (French Guiana and Suriname)
* Saramaccan (French Guiana and Suriname; English and Portuguese based)
* Matawai (Suriname)
* Sranan Tongo (Suriname)
* Tobago
* Trinidad
* Saint Vincent
* Virgin Islands

|

Western|

* Bahamas
* Belize
* Jamaican Maroon
* Jamaican Patois
* Bocas del Toro (Panama)
* Limonese Creole (Costa Rica)
* Miskito Coast (Nicaragua)
* Rama Cay (Nicaragua)
* San Andrés–Providencia (Colombia)
* Turks and Caicos

Asia and the Pacific|

* Australian Aborginal
* Bonin Islands
* Hawaiian Pidgin
* Malaysia
* Melanesia
* Bislama (Vanuatu)
* Pijin (Solomon Islands)
* Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea)
* Ngatikese Creole (Micronesia)
* Pitcairn-Norfolk
* Singapore
* Torres Strait Islands

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template