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A Brief Analysis Of The Nigerian Pidgin (broken) English - Culture - Nairaland

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Origin Of Common Nigerian Pidgin Words (i.e., Igbo, Yoruba, Or Hausa) / Swede In Need Of Help With Nigerian Pidgin / Nigeria Pidgin Proverbs & Their Meanings (2) (3) (4)

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A Brief Analysis Of The Nigerian Pidgin (broken) English by Angelou(m): 4:17pm On Aug 02, 2015
Nigerian Pidgin is mixture of English and
any tribal mother tongue in Nigeria,
spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria.It
has nothing to do with creole at all. The
language is commonly referred to as
" Pidgin" or "Brokin". It is distinguished
from other creole languages since most
speakers are not true native speakers,
although many children do learn it at an
early age. 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.[3] Variations of Pidgin are
also spoken across West Africa, in
countries such as Sierra Leone, Equatorial
Guinea, Ghana 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 Ṣe 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 Ṣe you dey
come? or You dey come abi? As another
example, the Igbos added the word Nna
also used at the beginning of some
sentences to show camaraderie. For
example, Man, that test was very 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.
[4]
But other people speak pidgin differently
and in their own ways all over Nigeria.
Relationship to other languages
and dialects
Similarity to Caribbean dialects
Nigerian Pidgin, along with the various
pidgin and creole languages of West
Africa share similarities to the various
dialects of English found in the Caribbean.
Some of the returning descendants of
slaves taken to the New World of West
African origin brought back many words
and phrases to West Africa from the
Jamaican Creole (also known as Jamaican
Patois or simply Patois) and the other
creole languages of the West Indies which
are components of Nigerian Pidgin. 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 West Africa are for the most
part mutually intelligible with the creole
languages of the Caribbean. The presence
of repetitious phrases in Jamaican 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 present in Nigerian
Pidgin, such as, "koro-koro", meaning
"clear vision", "yama-yama", meaning
"disgusting", and "doti-doti", meaning
"garbage". Furthermore, the use of the
words of West African origin in Jamaican
Patois "Una" - Jamaican Patois or "una" -
West African Pidgin (meaning "you
people", a word that comes from the Igbo
word "unu" also meaning "you people"wink
display some of the interesting similarities
between the English pidgins and creoles
of West Africa and the English pidgins and
creoles of the West Indies, 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). Use of the word "deh" or
"dey" is found in both Jamaican Patois
and Nigerian Pidgin English, and is used
in place of the English word "is" or "are".
The phrase "We dey foh London" would
be understood by both a speaker of
Patois and a speaker of Nigerian Pidgin to
mean "We are in London" (although the
Jamaican is more likely to say "We dey a
London"wink. Other similarities, such as
"pikin" (Nigerian Pidgin for "child"wink and
"pikney" (or "pikiny", Jamaican Patois for
"child", akin to the standard-English
pejorative/epithet pickaninny) and
"chook" (Nigerian Pidgin for "poke" or
"stab"wink which corresponds with the
Jamaican Patois word "jook", further
demonstrate the linguistic relationship source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_pidgin

1 Like

Re: A Brief Analysis Of The Nigerian Pidgin (broken) English by Daughterzion(f): 4:27pm On Aug 02, 2015
Fp tinx
Re: A Brief Analysis Of The Nigerian Pidgin (broken) English by Nobody: 4:33pm On Aug 02, 2015
Ok nice
Re: A Brief Analysis Of The Nigerian Pidgin (broken) English by Dlionsheart: 4:36pm On Aug 02, 2015
@op, a million thanks. Very educative.
Re: A Brief Analysis Of The Nigerian Pidgin (broken) English by Oscar4real(m): 4:43pm On Aug 02, 2015
informative
"we don know small" wink wink wink wink wink wink wink wink
Re: A Brief Analysis Of The Nigerian Pidgin (broken) English by Angelou(m): 5:28pm On Aug 02, 2015
.......

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