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INTODUCTION
Nigerian Pidgin is an English-based pidgin and creole language spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria. The language is commonly referred to as "Pidgin" or Broken (pronounced "Brokin". It is distinguished from other creole languages since most speakers are not true native speakers although many children 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.
Variations of Pidgin are also spoken across West and Central Africa, in countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Ghana and Cameroon. Pidgin English, despite its common use throughout the country, has no official status.



HISTORY
The origins of Nigerian Pidgin English lie historically in trade contact between the British and local people in the seventeenth century. It is part of a continuum of English Pidgins and Creoles spoken other West-African countries such as Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Ghana. In recent years, Nigerian Pidgin English development has been particularly evident in the big cities and ports in the south of Nigeria, where it is used among people belonging to different ethnic groups; the use of Nigerian Pidgin English is strictly linked to the urbanization process.

Nigerian Pidgin, along with the various pidgin and creole languages of West Africa share similarities to the various English-based Creoles found in the Caribbean. It is especially obvious in Jamaican Creole (also known as Jamaican Patois or simply Patois) and the other creole languages of the West Indies. Linguists posit that this is because most slaves 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 Caribbean are for the most part mutually intelligible with the creole languages of the West Africa. The presence of repetitious 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 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 "Unu" and Bajan dialect "wunna" or "una" - West African Pidgin (meaning "you people", a word that comes from the Igbo word "unu" or "wunna" 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 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 Caribbean Creole 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 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". Other similarities, such as "pikin" (Nigerian Pidgin for "child" and "pikney" (used in islands like 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 Bajan Creole word "juk", and also corresponds to "chook" used in other West Indian islands.

Connection to Portuguese language
Being derived partly from the present day Edo/Delta area of Nigeria, there are still some leftover words 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. (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".

Similar to the Caribbean Creole situation, Nigerian Pidgin is mostly used in informal conversations. However, Nigerian Pidgin has no status as an official language. Nigerian Standard English is used in politics, the Internet and some television programs.

The most important difference to other types of English is the limited repertoire of 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.

In the past the use of Nigerian Pidgin English was linked to non-educated people and perceived by the educated ones with negative attitude. Nowadays the use of Nigerian Pidgin English is more widespread even among educated people and perceived as more Nigerian than English. Indeed, using Nigerian Pidgin English is increasingly popular among young people, many writers, politicians and musicians.
The fact that it is not attached to any ethnic group makes it a very good candidate as an official lingua franca in the Federation. The use of Nigerian Pidgin English can also function, in some contexts, as an act of identity when speakers need to stress their 'Nigerianness', as opposed to their ethnic group identity. In other words, Nigerian Pidgin English can express a belonging to Nigeria, which English, the language of the ex-colonial power, cannot. This is very similar to other multiethnic postcolonial situations. Compare the linguistic situation of Mauritius Islands where English and French are the official languages, but they coexist with other very powerful community languages (Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, etc.) and Mauritian French Creole. The latter, although lacking official status, is the only language which can express a neutral Mauritian identity.
No official status has been granted to Nigerian Pidgin English in Nigeria, although some Nigerians have suggested that it would be a good candidate for national language status, since it retains the above-mentioned characteristics of solidarity and neutrality. However, Nigerian Pidgin English is not yet sufficiently well-developed to fulfill all the duties of a national language. There is no standard orthography, little or no written use, and above all no active movement favouring its development and propagation. One of the obstacles to standardization is the perception of Nigerian Pidgin English as a variety of English, rather than a separate language; Nigerians often refer to Nigerian Pidgin English as 'brokin English'.

See More Stuffs Like This From Source Below

SOURCE: [url=http://www.takemetonaija.com/search/label/HISTORIES%2FCULTURE?&max-results=8]https://www.takemetonaija.com/2017/07/brokin-nigerian-pidgin-history-and.html[/url]

Interesting

interesting

Informative. The Nigerian pidgin is also affecting a lot of children in the learning process of the formal English language

Broken Language- Indeed, the name is apt.

Hmmmn ... broken indeed

For record purpose, 'Broken' is different from 'Pidgin'. Broken English has to do with poor use of English language(either spoken or written) the type that the individual struggles to speak fluently and correctly with so much grammatical errors; while Nigerian Pidgin is peculiar to us as a nation more like our Lingua Franca, the speaker doesn't try to speak correct grammar.

mayberry1:
For record purpose, 'Broken' is different from 'Pidgin'. Broken English has to do with poor use of English language(either spoken or written) the type that the individual struggles to speak fluently and correctly with so much grammatical errors

So what is pidgin??

Does “Make I come dey go” sound like rich use of English (either spoken or written) with perfect grammatical tenses and lexis?


Pidgin= Brokin abeg.

scholes0:


So what is pidgin??

Does “Make I come dey go” sound like rich use of English (either spoken or written) with perfect grammatical tenses and lexis?


Pidgin= Brokin abeg.

She knows what she is saying. Pidgin actually has structure and all those things. Just that it is widely different from what obtains in Standard English.

Broken English is the sort of thing you hear from someone who only knows a few English words trying to speak the language.

Like: "Me inside plane, fly." "You pay banana, no."

Nigerians use Broken and Pidgin interchangeably though. But, yea, they are different things.

RedboneSmith:


She knows what she is saying. Pidgin actually has structure and all those things. Just that it is widely different from what obtains in Standard

Pidgin has no structure abeg. A creole has a structure but a pidgin does not. That is why Pidgin in Nigeria differs from place to place and is constantly changing and evolving to include new forms and convoluted ways of expressing the same things that already had a previous form. In short, no rules.

The way someone in Jos will speak pidgin (structure, grammar and all) might significantly differ from what you may hear in Benin.

What makes pidgin not broken English?

scholes0:


So what is pidgin??

Does “Make I come dey go” sound like rich use of English (either spoken or written) with perfect grammatical tenses and lexis?


Pidgin= Brokin abeg.

If you read my post well you will see were I stated that in Pidgin English the speaker doesn't try hard to speak correct English, why not argue with facts after you've done a lil bit of research than trying to confuse others.
NB: it's Broken and not Brokin

....

scholes0:


Pidgin has no structure abeg. A creole has a structure but a pidgin does not. That is why Pidgin in Nigeria differs from place to place and is constantly changing and evolving to include new forms and convoluted ways of expressing the same things that already had a previous form. In short, no rules.

The way someone in Jos will speak pidgin (structure, grammar and all) might significantly differ from what you may hear in Benin.

What makes pidgin not broken English?

Because Pidgin has variants doesn't mean it has no structure. Which language doesn't have variants. Because it evolves doesn't mean it doesn't have structure. Which language doesn't evolve?

A Pidgin only has a simplified structure relative to standard languages.

Do you realise that there are linguists who study Pidgin and compile lexicons of Pidgin words and grammar? You cannot study the grammar of pidgins if they do not have structure.

The same cannot be said of Broken (which is just the terrible English spoken by people who don't have a mastery of English) because no two people even speak the same broken - two Italian brothers speaking broken English to the same English tourist won't even speak the same way, that's how formless broken is.

If I give the same text in proper English to three different speakers of pidgin, one in Lagos, one in Sapele and the other in Calabar and ask them to do aome traduction , it would surprise you how different what they come up with would be.
The only binding factors between the three translations might end up being just the general Idea.

Let’s. Ot mid ourselves here, Pidgin has no fixed grammar or atructure.

The partial structure obtainable in pidgin as it were, is largely derived from english just like most of the vocab, and word order (SVO) don’t differ most of the time, with the rest derived from innovations based on the local languages spoken in the local vicinity where the particular version of pidgin is being spoken.

I see am - I saw it
And I began to sing - As I come dey sing
Etc

Furthermore....

Broken English refers to a poorly spoken or ill-written version of the English language, sometimes considered a pidgin. Under the strictest definition of the term, broken English consists of English vocabulary grafted onto the syntax of a non-English speaker's native language.

EXACTLY what pidgin is in Nigeria.

Your example with three Pidgin speakers fails to take one thing into consideration that is common with translations. If I give the same English passage to three Yoruba-speakers to translate, they will give me three different translations. I don't even have to do this with different Yoruba regions and dialects to get a rich variety of translations. Just three speakers and writers of the same dialect will give different results. Does this mean Yoruba has no structure?

See the links and screenshots below. Their verdict: Pidgin has a grammatical structure, albeit a simplified one. Broken has no grammatical structure.

Although they also include that Pidgin at its worse could be called broken. So Pidgin-Creole-Broken exist in some kind of continuum. But they aren't synonyms.


http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/pidgin

http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/art-and-architecture/architecture/broken#1O29BROKEN

lemme add to this pidgin english have structure's fro exp: make we come dey go=wrong pidgin make we dey go= correct pidgin
lemme be come and be going= wrong pigin lemme be going=correct pidgin

mayberry1:

If you read my post well you will see were I stated that in Pidgin English the speaker doesn't try hard to speak correct English, why not argue with facts after you've done a lil bit of research than trying to confuse others.
NB: it's Broken and not Brokin

Hello.. the thread is about Nigerian pidgin English so its BROKIN not BROKEN... stop tushing everytin up

Codedrock:


Hello.. the thread is about Nigerian pidgin English so its BROKIN not BROKEN... stop tushing everytin up

There's no such word as "Brokin", and Broken has nothing to do with Nigerian pidgin English, it's a terminology on it own. Why can't you research before quoting me. Why are most Nigerians fond of baseless arguments devoid of facts. Knowledge is power.

RedboneSmith:
Your example with three Pidgin speakers fails to take one thing into consideration that is common with translations. If I give the same English passage to three Yoruba-speakers to translate, they will give me three different translations. I don't even have to do this with different Yoruba regions and dialects to get a rich variety of translations. Just three speakers and writers of the same dialect will give different results. Does this mean Yoruba has no structure?

See the links and screenshots below. Their verdict: Pidgin has a grammatical structure, albeit a simplified one. Broken has no grammatical structure.

Although they also include that Pidgin at its worse could be called broken. So Pidgin-Creole-Broken exist in some kind of continuum. But they aren't synonyms.


http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/pidgin

http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/art-and-architecture/architecture/broken#1O29BROKEN

hon tell me to go away and I will but before then I just wanting the opportunity to make you sweet jellofy Ricing ok, d smoky party kind ok

Now RedboneSmith you tell me to go away and I will, if not I will keep inquiring about your Jollof Rice preferencing so I will no ow to cook am for you ok

mayberry1:


There's no such word as "Brokin", and Broken has nothing to do with Nigerian pidgin English, it's a terminology on it own. Why can't you research before quoting me. Why are most Nigerians fond of baseless arguments devoid of facts. Knowledge is power.

Hi.. lady.. you taking this too serious.. I know "brokin english" is not really a thing. and i know broken english is the correct thing..
What i am saying is the article is directed at Nigerians, if you are a Nigerian at all or live in Nigeria you will know it is pronounced "BROKIN" in Nigeria.
Please calm down and enjoy the article

pidgin English and Brokin are two different things and one thing pidgin has been Creolized in the Nigerdelta region as most people from Ages 3 to 40 now speak it as a first Language. Every language (except Itshekiri) has varieties and Dialects and every language evolves. Do you know how English Started. I don't think you'd be able to understand Old English if you read it and don't think its King James English. This is Far worst.