Nigerian Pidgin

Nigerian Pidgin, Naija
Spoken in	Nigeria
Native speakers	80 million in total
Language family	Creole language English Creole Atlantic Krio Nigerian Pidgin, Naija
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pcm

Nigerian Pidgin is an English-based pidgin and a creole language spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria. The language is commonly referred to as "Pidgin" or "Brokin". It is often not considered a creole language since most speakers are not native speakers, although many children do learn it early. Nonetheless it can be spoken as a pidgin, a creole, or a decreolised acrolect by different speakers, who may switch between these forms depending on the social setting. Faraclas, Nicholas C., Nigerian Pidgin, Descriptive Grammar, 1996, Introduction. Ihemere (2006) reports that Nigerian Pidgin is the native language of approximately 3 to 5 million people and is a second language for at least another 75 million. Variations of Pidgin are also spoken across West Africa, in countries such as Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. Pidgin English, despite its common use throughout the country, has no official status.

Variations

Each of the 250 or more ethnic groups in Nigeria can converse in this language, though they usually have their own additional words. For example, the Yorùbás use the words Şe and Abi when speaking Pidgin. These are often used at the start or end of an intonated sentence or question. For example, "You are coming, right?" becomes Şe you dey come? or You dey come abi? Another example, the Igbos added the word, Nna also used at the beginning of some sentences to add effect. For example, man! that test was hard becomes Nna, that test hard no be small.

Nigerian Pidgin also varies from place to place. Dialects of Nigerian Pidgin may include the Warri, Sapele, Benin, Port-Harcourt, Lagos especially in Ajegunle, Onitsha varieties.

Nigerian Pidgin is most widely spoken in the oil rich Niger-Delta where most of its population speak it as their first language.^[1]

Homophones

The most important differences to other types of English is that there are only some consonants, vowels (6) and diphthongs (3) used. This produces a lot of homophones, like thin, thing and tin which are all three pronounced like /tin/. This circumstance gives a high importance to the context, the tone, the body language and any other ways of communication for the distinction of the homophones.

See also

	Nigeria portal
	Languages portal

• Pichinglis
• Creole language
• Jamaican Creole
• Naijalingo

References

Notes

1. ^ Herbert Igboanusi: Empowering Nigerian Pidgin: a challenge for status planning?. World Englishes, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 68–82, 2008.

Bibliography

• Akhimien, Eronmonsele Pius. 2004. The use of ‘How are you?’ in Nigerian society, Journal of Pragmatics Volume 36, Issue 11, November 2004, Pages 2055-2058
• Ihemere, Kelechukwu Uchechukwu. 2006. "A Basic Description and Analytic Treatment of Noun Clauses in Nigerian Pidgin." Nordic Journal of African Studies 15(3): 296–313.
• Shnukal, Anna and Lynell Marchese. 1983. "Creolization of Nigerian Pidgin English: a progress report." English World-wide 4: 17-26.
• Ernest Edjeren. 2009. "Single Language: The Soul Of Nations' Prosperity"

External links

• Ethnologue report for Nigerian Pidgin
• A Dictionary of Nigerian English; Blench, Roger. 2005. (circulation draft)
• Nigerian Pidgin/Broken English Dictionary Naija Lingo also contains Nigerian Slangs
• Online Nigerian Pidgin
• Pidginguide.com Nigerian Pidgin English dictionary, translator, and community