Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,152,457 members, 7,816,074 topics. Date: Friday, 03 May 2024 at 02:30 AM

Identitying Naija Pidgin Accents And Dialects. - Culture - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Culture / Identitying Naija Pidgin Accents And Dialects. (525 Views)

Is There Anyone Who Speaks These Rare Nigerian Dialects? / List Of Igbo Dialects And Where They Are Spoken In Igboland / Syntax Variations Across Igbo Dialects (2) (3) (4)

(1) (Reply)

Identitying Naija Pidgin Accents And Dialects. by Sinistami(m): 12:56pm On Jul 20, 2018
Identitying Naija Pidgin Accents can be tricky based on that they have been no real study on them. That is a result of the stigma and belief that Nigerian Pidgin isn't a language but a bastardization of English which actually isn't completely true. B
one of the reasons people stigmatize it is because of its name Nigerian Pidgin English which I would say isn't accurate any longer. Wikipedia defines a pidgin as a Grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more languages that has no similarities prior before they admixture . it is not classified as a language because it doesn't have Native speakers. the contact always includes a Substrate language or languages Eg Yoruba Igbo Edo Urhobo Ijaw Hausa etc which the language gets its grammar and syntax etc. And the Superstrate language Eg English which it's gets most of its lexicon from. But right now the language as its spoken doesn't go as the above definition says especially the Nigerdelta where the language has been creolized ie has turned into a creole. A creole as defined in Wikipedia goes like this A creole is a stable Natural language that developed from a mixture of different languages in a fairly sudden point in time. Most creoles developed from pidgins as the children of the pidgin speakers starts speaking it as a first language. Children naturally gives it it's own grammar and vocabulary and structure. in that sense it becomes independent from the parent Languages as the language is no longer used only for specific things it's now used for a wider scope of tasks.
I would classify Naija pidgin Accents and Dialects into two major groups Native and Non native accents and Dialects: Native accents are the accents that are spoken mostly by Native first language speakers Eg are Waffi Warri Dialects Baffi Benin Dialect, Saffi Sapele Dialects Pitakwa Portharcourt Dialects Yeniz Yenagoa Dialects You'd know a Native Accent when it's spoken in a place where the surrounding local languages are in Danger and in most cases the Accent won't show a tribal marker excluding those of Delta origin like Waffle and Saffi Dialects and even Baffi. Those of Portharcourt and Yenagoa don't really show tribal markers not that they don't have it it's very minimum. The other group the Non native ones include Calabar or Una dialects, Igbo pidgin accents Eg Onitsha variety, Ajegunle and other Lagos dialects (although this one is starting to have native speakers) Aboki Dialects (Not including the Sabon-Gari dialect. Sabon-Gari Dialects. These ones are mostly very much influenced by the tribal language of their environment by way of pronunciation and lots of tribal words in it.
A standard Dialect of the language is pretty much needed if the language is ever going to get an official status plus a name change is needed. The Naija Langwej akademi a linguistic group has already solved this by creating a standard orthography and changing the Name to Naij'a but they still need Government backing.

1 Like

(1) (Reply)

Ogbaragada Is Abracadabra? / Dead Turtle At Alpha Beach (video) / Sentences That Irritate Me On Nigerian Social Media

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 26
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.