₦airaland Forum

obaaderemi:
That's just 4 small countries confined to East Africa,and how come Ethiopia doesn't speak swahili?That kind of limits it although I sincerely wish all of black Africa could speak one language even if it was Swahili or Twi.But then a single language as a uniting factor is something overrated.Switzerland,a small country,has 4 official languages(french,Italian,German and Romansch)yet it's arguably the world's richest and most successful nation.

Almost all Swiss people speak German and English. Forget the french speaking and other minorities.

Europe have always had lingua francas at different times. It was latin some few centuries ago, then it became french and now English.

uzzyfire:
so jos has winter ? iv not been to warri before sef so I don't know abt infrastructure.

wat I really want to know is how often jos experiences hailstorms and does it cover a whole street or community

It hailstorms almost yearly. Even within Jos-Plateau, some places are colder than the others e.g Rukubua (in Jos city), Pankshin and Kuru towns (outside Jos), because these places are the highest points on the Plateau.
It hails more often in these places because they are colder.
The hailstorms can cover a street. It is worse in some places than others even when it is falling same time.

fanficgirl:
Nigerians and their Shakara. There is a difference between the potential to be the greatest and actually being the greatest. Nigeria is a shithole as it is now, but with massive potential to not be a shithole. Does that help?

According to your definition, which African country is not a shit hole? Do you want to compare yourself with Europeans who have been building their countries for centuries?

Just30:
I just told you, it doesn't sound Nigerian at all. Except you want to tell me Nigerians speak Twi, Fante, Portuguese or Danish
Cos most of the pidgin we speak is a corruption of those languages as well as creative formations to sideline authorities whom we don't want to understand.

Hmm, we never hear your pidgin being spoken. Okay, so why do you guys still speak ours?

Can you pls translate these sentences for me in your own pidgin? I'd like to know how it sounds

1, I don't know how to eat this kind of food.
2, It has been long i travelled abroad.
3, My stomach is filled

Just30:
how does Twi or Fante sounds Nigerian?

I'm not talking of local Ghanaian languages, i'm talking of the pidgin we hear you guys sometimes speak which sounds Nigerian.

uzzyfire:
oga there's nothing like Ghanaian pidgin , u guys simply copied it from Nigerians . a lot of ghanains try to talk like Nigerians but they end up saying rubbish loooooll. if u hear a Ghanaian speaking pidgin eeehn u will laugh it doesn't suit them at allll

Southern Cameroonians speak pidgin better than Ghanaians...
Ghanaian accent is just funny and weird

uzzyfire:
dude how beautiful and how cold is jos, iv been wanting to go there but all d crisis and stuff

There has been no crisis in Jos city for 7 yrs now (so it's a long time).
The cold season is usually Nov-Early March. The cold is over now. Only Nights and mornings are cool now, and rainy days too.
Jos is mountainous, so you will enjoy the scenery. Food is very cheap. In terms of city infrastructure, Jos is just like Warri (although it is neater).

Kenyanstar:
You are just plain bitter and paranoid.....


Most famous Ugandan artists like Chameleon( who once lived and stayed in Kenya) has 90 percent swahili in his songs. Bobi whine, Blu 3 etc have mostly swahili songs.



The Baganda are Bantus and most swahili words are loaned from Bantu language. There are dofferent and diverse spoken swahili which is different from written. Most Bagandas are business people and reason enough why their need to know spoken swahili is essential to their businesses.

An answer to u

Nowenuse:
I never argue or dispute the fact that Swahili has the greatest potentials in Black Africa. However it is not there yet.

Hausa language is spoken as well by over 100 million people. At least 70- 80 million Nigerians speak Hausa, 20 million Nigeriéns speak Hausa, 8-10 million Cameroonians, 5-8 million Ghanains and fewer millions in Togo and Benin republic speak Hausa.
Hausa language does not have potentials like swahili because majority of the people who speak the language are poverty stricken muslim illiterates.
However, the BBC started broadcasting in Hausa decades ago same time they started in swahili. Deutschewelle, Radio franca and China also broadcast in Hausa and the language is also studied in many universities worldwide.
I have seen many white people who learn hausa from Europe/America and spoke it fluently.
I think, Swahili, Hausa and Amharic almost have equal status internationally, only that swahili has more political relevance and spread.

Navio, Eddy Kenzo, Radio & weasel and many other popular Ugandan artistes, i've never heard them sing swahili but Luganda. I don't argue the fact that Swahili is widely used in Uganda and many more Ugandans are learning the language due to trade with other EA countries. The govt is also trying to enforce it in their curriculum, but it is facing rejection by many.

https://globalpressjournal.com/africa/uganda/ugly-history-kiswahili-prompts-many-resist-teaching-ugandas-schools/

Introducing a language into the curriculum is not enough to make people master it.
French was forced into Nigerian curriculum in the spirit of ECOWAS brotherhood decades ago, but today less than 1% of Nigerians speak it. We just don't have the interest, because we don't see the need and use for it. All our french speaking neighbours are of no influence to us at all. If we had more wealthy and influential french speaking neighbours, we might have taken it with more interest. Ghanaians speak french better than us because of their neighbour Ivory coast (which has as much influence as them, if not greater than them).

Just30:
in Ghana, the kind of pidgin we speak is a corruption of many other languages and it is spoken in dormitories.

It still came from Nigeria cos it sounds Nigerian

Aimosagie:
My guy.. gbagbe oshi jare.. which psychological trauma to a man is it that you are talking about?? Even on this nairaland, you see the guys commenting and begging to be sexually harassed so biko what are you saying? A man cannot be raped except he truly wants it.. whatever regret he feels later on (if there's any) is just his conscience eating at him. Sex is something a man sees as a trophy he just acquired.. another puna he has conquered and will brag about it to other guys who care to listen and who will still be weirdly envious of the dude's conquest. So I say again..my guy, gbagbe oshi.

This is a very terrible mentality many of you have.
Pls learn to differentiate Men (matured ones) from Boys (immatured ones). It may be that you have mostly met with boys and not men.

missyadorable:
How can a man be complaining of sexual harrassment?
Men always want sex...Something they chase,spend money on,tell lies to get being offered on a platter of gold irrespective of the person or location is a plus

having sex with his boss/colleague at work is a mega achievement.Something to discuss with the guys at a bar over chilled beer and be applauded and envied by peers.

Unless a child under 18years,there is nothing like male sexual harrassment.
An invitation for sex is every man's dream.

Not every man. Correct yourself.
Some men will only be intimate with a woman they are physically attracted to and not every woman that hits on them.
What about born again men and married men who do not want to cheat on their spouses?
Men are different just as women are, so don't make generalizations.

uzzyfire:
actually pidgin originated from sierra Leone and Cameroon that's where Nigerians learnt it from.

Sierra leonan pidgin is quite very different from Naija's own, ours is deeper however and has evolved differently from theirs.

Pidgin actually started from both Nigeria and Sierra leone during the slave trade with Nigeria and the portuguese along the coasts in the 15th century, but it was later popularized during the colonial period.

TayserMahiri:
It takes time before a standard emerges. And sadly, you cannot force standards on people,

Yes you are right. However, we are familiar with the vocabularies of each other through one media. I speak warri pidgin for instance, but i can understand 95% of any word any other pidgin speaker will use.

What many people don't know is that pidgin is very deep, it depends on how deep you want to go.

I AM HUNGRY for instance may be said as

I DEY HUNGRY (in a light way which even u can grasp)

I DEY HESH or
HUNGER DEY WAYA ME O (in a lighter way)

ALAM DEY BLOW O (a deeper/figurative way which only deep pidgin speakers will understand).

uzzyfire:
yeah ur ryte, pidgin isn't a language self, its a slang version of English . its like wen black americans talk

Pidgin cannot be compared to Black American english. Black american english is still considered a dialect of English because the only difference is mainly the accent and pronounciation of words and syllables.
When a language is considered a pidgin, it has completely diverged into a hybrid language.

Many new words and vocabularies have been introduced into pidgin that has made it completely different from pidgin. Our pidgin will soon transform into a creole like Haitian creole cos many people are now becoming native pidgin speakers and now dropping their native languages in South-south Nigeria especially.

You Easternerns do not speak core pidgin. Yours is very light. Warri, Benin and parts of Lagos are the home of real pidgin.
Even though i was born in Warri, there are some kinds of core warri pidgin that i still do not understand.

TayserMahiri:
Lately, many Ugandans have become fed up with Luganda due to NRM Uganda which they term as backwards and unprogressive and are favoring swahili due to its association with business and kenya. And maany Ugandan artists sing in swahili. You just do not know them. Tell me any Ugandan artist and if they have never sang in swahili I will be surprised. Chameleone, Babe Cool, Juliana and many all know swahili. Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992.

This is why Swahili, which was merely a language of note 50 years ago is one to watch out for. In fact, it is being compared to Chinese which was literally nothing 100 years ago and today is the most widely spoken. Today, over 100 universities offer swahili language worldwide on a consistent basis.

1. Swahili is spoken by over 100m people in Africa so it’s pretty hard to ignore a language that’s spoken by so many people. Its importance as a lingua franca is recognised by foreign media organisations such as the BBC, which broadcasts radio programmes in Swahili. Voice of America and Deutsche Welle have adopted similar tactics in their attempts to appeal to readers on the continent.


2. If you’re dealing with East Africa in any way, then it’s essential you take notice of the Swahili language. Swahili is a Bantu language and therefore spoken by many communities that inhabit the Great Lakes region and other areas of southeast Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Mozambique. It’s particularly useful to have knowledge of Swahili if doing business in Kenya. The country is the largest economy in East and Central Africa and has seen massive growth in areas such as telecommunications in the last decade.

3. Swahili is the national or official language of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as being one of the official languages of the East African Community and African Union. It is a language of influence politically, economically and socially, and a knowledge of it can deepen business relationships.

4. Swahili plays an important part in education in several African countries. Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992. It is also a compulsory subject in Kenyan schools and a distinct academic discipline in many public and private universities. With the next generation of leaders, as well as consumers all speaking Swahili, ignoring it would be short sighted.

5. Inter-African trade at this point in time is low. Poor transport connections and infrastructure have thus far capped business movements between African countries. However, as investment is made in improving logistics, trading languages will emerge to aid communication between different peoples. Swahili is well placed to become such a tool.

6. Swahili will become a language associated with IT and technology and, as a result, arts and culture. As investment continues in IT infrastructure and mobile and online solutions in countries such as Kenya, the economy will grow. When an economy grows so do people’s spending power, their exposure to information and their inventiveness and creativity. The result will be a flourishing tech-culture scene expressed through Swahili. “Swahilihood” is a term already starting to make appearances online.

7. Knowledge of Swahili will enhance the credibility of researchers interested in Africa. Areas such as big data, social media and digital information are growing and to gain critical insight into Africa’s evolving markets, having an understanding of Swahili will be very important.

I never argue or dispute the fact that Swahili has the greatest potentials in Black Africa. However it is not there yet.

Hausa language is spoken as well by over 100 million people. At least 70- 80 million Nigerians speak Hausa, 20 million Nigeriéns speak Hausa, 8-10 million Cameroonians, 5-8 million Ghanains and fewer millions in Togo and Benin republic speak Hausa.
Hausa language does not have potentials like swahili because majority of the people who speak the language are poverty stricken muslim illiterates.
However, the BBC started broadcasting in Hausa decades ago same time they started in swahili. Deutschewelle, Radio franca and China also broadcast in Hausa and the language is also studied in many universities worldwide.
I have seen many white people who learn hausa from Europe/America and spoke it fluently.
I think, Swahili, Hausa and Amharic almost have equal status internationally, only that swahili has more political relevance and spread.

Navio, Eddy Kenzo, Radio & weasel and many other popular Ugandan artistes, i've never heard them sing swahili but Luganda. I don't argue the fact that Swahili is widely used in Uganda and many more Ugandans are learning the language due to trade with other EA countries. The govt is also trying to enforce it in their curriculum, but it is facing rejection by many.

https://globalpressjournal.com/africa/uganda/ugly-history-kiswahili-prompts-many-resist-teaching-ugandas-schools/

Introducing a language into the curriculum is not enough to make people master it.
French was forced into Nigerian curriculum in the spirit of ECOWAS brotherhood decades ago, but today less than 1% of Nigerians speak it. We just don't have the interest, because we don't see the need and use for it. All our french speaking neighbours are of no influence to us at all. If we had more wealthy and influential french speaking neighbours, we might have taken it with more interest. Ghanaians speak french better than us because of their neighbour Ivory coast (which has as much influence as them, if not greater than them).

MtuMsuper:
If i stick in nairaland too long, i go soon sabi pidgin pass warri man. How de market?
(Give me a pass/fail, how did i fare?)

LoL, i'd give you pass. However it is far deeper than you think it is. Many people in Nairaland do not even write in pidgin because pidgin does not have an official writing standard yet. Not until you visit Nigerian cities live will you get the real standard.

TayserMahiri:
Thank you for the crash course. Then pidgin must be very subjective to the speaker. The words to be used where, and in which order must be a matter of prerogative depending on the mother tongue of the speaker? Or you guys have come up with a universal standard ?

No universal standard yet, but due to increased interraction and socialization. A unified standard is evolving. There are some agencies that are forming a pidgin dictionary and official standard.

MtuMsuper:
pidgin has power in nigeria no doubt. How do you talk to a market woman in Kano or Maiduguri? Do you use pidgin ad well?
Believe me when i say i will be well understood as a kenyan if i went to anywhere in Eastern DR Congo , all i would need is a crash course in Congolese Kiswahili. This very day, i heard some Congolese swahili speakers talking, it was just sweet listening to them. We have plenty of congolese in kenyan cities, what can​ we do about it, we live in an unbalanced world that doesnt obey the laws of entropy , and we have to absorb the imbalance from their end. We might be next.

Pidgin is understood by many in Kano and Maiduguri, but Hausa still dominates. Only core- northernerns who have lived in the south and educated core-northernerns speak pidgin, the rest do not and you must learn Hausa if you want to live there.
However, Northern cities like Jos and Kaduna (because of the large population of christians here who are socially connected to the south), pidgin is becoming a street language and is gradually displacing Hausa.

But i heard that Congolese and Rwandan swahili is completely different from EA swahili and almost mutually unintelligible?
Also, i think you are exaggerating. Only about one quarter of Congo DR should be able to speak swahili because there are 3 other co-national lingua francas in Congo.

TayserMahiri:
There is not anywhere in Uganda where they won't understand you if you speak swahili. Its only that they cannot leave their Luganda as it is part of their culture/ nationhood. For that reason, they speak both languages and swahili in particular when dealing with other east africans. Heck even Museveni speaks swahili to the media in Kampala.

As soon as the EAC merges, Swahili will be the top dog in Africa. Nigerian pidgin has a long way to be where Swahili is now and honestly, I don't see any comparison between the two given swahili is a full fledged language with its own kamusi (dictionary) and offered in universities around the world. Until Pidgin gets a standard, it will remain a shady language unusable in diplomatic circles.

Pls stop lying. Only Northern Ugandans do favour swahili, i have read articles on why many Southern Ugandans reject swahili claiming that it is a language of military and oppression (due to Idi Amin).
They are trying to promote swahili in Southern Uganda, but it's still not working out.
Museveni can speak swahili to the country because most northern ugandans understand the language, but the capital is in the south. This is why you hardly see Ugandan artistes singing or acting in swahili. The Buganda people are the largest and most influential ethnic group in the country and until they agree to adopt swahili, the language will never dominate Southern Uganda.

Yes i fully agree, if EAC is one country, they have what it takes to 'Swahili-nize' Africa, because their media and influence will be so powerful and they will start taking over other countries, unless Nigeria ups her game and officialize pidgin.

In years to come, pidgin will be Nigeria's official language because younger people who favour the language more than older people will gradually get in power.

MtuMsuper:
Kiswahili is the official and/or national language in Kenya,Tanzania,Dr Congo, and soon to be Rwanda.
Kiswahili got power baby!

Less than one-quarter of DR Congo speaks Swahili. Lingala is still the dominant language as it dominates Kinshasa (the centre of the govt).
In DRC, swahili is co-national with Lingala, Kikongo and Tshiluba. It's not the sole national language.

Muafrika2:
Yep!

Right next to a soakaway

I stopped trusting borehole water after that incident in some place in a rural area where residents disposed some refined oil on a pit latrine, just before boreholes hundreds of metres downhill started oozing the same oil

Sensible Nigerians dont dig bore holes close to soakaways. Many Nigerians prefer Table and bottled water though.

MtuMsuper:
How do you perceive/understand/practice this thing ,whats it again,....ah yes "power" ?

Ok, do you know that the different North African countries have their own varieties of Arabic?
But, most Tunisians, Moroccans, Algerians, Libyans and Sudanese can understand Egyptian Arabic very well. This is because of the power and regional influence Egypt has.

If not for the fact that all Arabic speaking countries agreed to adopt classical arabic as their official languages (due to Arab league brotherhood). Egyptian arabic would have been a regional lingua franca. That's the kind of power am talking of.

MtuMsuper:
Has any language ever united Europe, Asia or pre columbian America?

Black Africans are of one race. Asians are not of one race.
Mandarin has united 90% of the East Asian race.
Hindustani has united 90% of South Asian race.
Arabic has united majority of Middle-east/North Africa
50% of Europeans now speak English.

No crime if at least 50% of Black Africans speak one language.

TayserMahiri:
The Ghanians and Cameroonians just lack a local pidgin language. Swahili is spoken in so many countries and spreading very rapidly. It is even an official language of the AU. Wait untill it is offered in nigerian universities and you guys will be taken...

Swahili lacks the power to dominate Africa because the countries who speak swahili are not powerful enough. It takes the language of a powerful country to dominate a continent.

Swahili has not even finished dominating Uganda. The southern half reject the language and favours Luganda. In Congo, Swahili still has 3 powerful lingua francas (Lingala, Kikongo and Tshiluba) to compete with. Rwanda and Burundi are very small, uninfluential and insignificant countries in Africa.

Until there is a powerful, dominating and large country speaking swahili in Africa, the language will never dominate Africa. Arabic is even doing better.

Shaytun:
Even the English we are speaking of is not exactly a perfect language you have many borrowed language into it just like the pidgin

Of course. 50% or more of English belongs to Latin, Greek, French or Celtic languages.

MtuMsuper:
confirmed. my bad. Chichewa is a national language in Malawi though, not official. I have heard it spoken and it sounds like shona language of Zimbabwe. They are so close, a stranger cant tell the difference. And even more interesting is the similarity in names between shona people of Zimbabwe and Mijikenda people of Kenya, its eerie. But the spoken shona sounds like maragoli dialect of the luhya people of kenya.

All of you Bantus are similar, you have same ancestors from Nigeria/Cameroon axis.

This is why i support a Bantu union in Africa. You guys should try and trace the original proto Bantu language and promote it! (this may end up being the language to unite Africa) as Bantu is the largest subgroup of the Black race.

Swahili on it's own will never be able to penetrate Southern Africa, West Africa and West-Central Africa.

Muafrika2:
Good to know.

It explains the sharp divisions and where the ideas of cessation come from. I think it was similar to our coastal strip which was allowed a semi independent existence for sometime. They sometimes harbour dreams of cessation

So u see. We are like 3 or more nations in one.
Infact, many of our founding fathers were openly anti-nationalists who promoted only their regional interests.

We just started integrating amongst ourselves. Southern Nigeria has somehow succesfully integrated and we in North-central Nigeria are gradually joining them.
The people dragging us behind are the North-west and North-east people (this is mainly because of Islamic extremism).

Shaytun:
No he is not, He is telling you his own truth from his own perspective.

You choosing to believe his own version over other nigerian's just tell's us the kind of "truth" you are looking for.

LoL, They need someone who will agree to Nigeria's problems and never promote Nigeria's progress WHILE they promote their own progress and act as if their problems never exist.

Dem feel say na dem get wayo pass. Dem nor know say we kukuma sabi wuru-wuru pass dem.

MtuMsuper:
Nowenuse has proven himself to be a supremacist and anti kenyan. The Obi1kenobi guy at least is telling us the truth, uncomfortable as it is. I like realists.

Nigeria has different kind of peeps.
We have many who believe that the country is better divided e.g Obi1kenobi (and i really don't blame them though), cos Nigeria was never supposed to be one nation. It was only merged as one due to colonial administrative convenience.

Have you been able to prove any of my assertions as lies? So, how can you tell am a supremacist? You want me to allow you guys magnify Nigeria's problems while you magnify Kenya's progress?

Muafrika2:
That's just an excuse. Tanzania has more than 120 differe tribes. Kenya has over 47 which are officially recognized. Swahili was spoken by just absmall population at the time of adoption, in fact, most of the elderly people in Kenya can't speak swahili - unless they have bee through the education system where its a compulsory subject. Swahili, is spreading through the education system.

Linguistic diversity was the reason why we adopted Swahili, instead of a colonial language. We still use the colonial language for the sake of people like you.

Nigeria did not have the same colonial history as other African countries.
The British formed Nigeria as a tripod nation with 3 major ethnic groups (in 3 regions).

For instance, Hausa is the lingua franca in my state (Plateau state), but my people are not Hausas, but because we were classified under the Hausa northern region, all ethnic groups under the Northern region had to learn Hausa. Likewise all the ethnic groups in the other regions, Yoruba and Igbo.

During the colonial period of Nigeria, all the 3 regions functioned wholly independently of each other (like different countries) with their own independent legislatures. This is why Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo are our national languages.
Not until recently when all Nigerian ethnic groups started relating and mixing did we see the need for a lingua franca (Pidgin). We are not like you guys that have been relating with each many decades now. Nigeria was like different countries merged as one (the reason we are large)

Many people are now favoring pidgin to be adopted as our National language. Not too long ago did Kenya make swahili an official language afterall.

MtuMsuper:
There is not a single Southern african country with native official language except SA. Get your facts right.

Tswana is official in Botswana. Shona is official in Zimbabwe. Chichewa is official in Malawi.

gallivant:
Why would any sane person brag about broken English? Swahili is an international language offered in several international universities.

French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish e.t.c were all varieties of pidgin Latin and today are world languages.

Brokin is being promoted by the largest nation in Africa (Nigeria).