₦airaland Forum

9jakool:
Interesting! I don't know much about Zarama, but I know Epie Attisa people speak a distinct language that closer to Edo.

Both speak Edoid languages although Zarama speaks Engenne which is much closer to Edo than Epie which has a lot of Izon words in it.

where u from Though.

Iam Zarama in MA Father's side then Epie Attisa in my mom side all in Yenagoa.

Moneywomen17:
never said it was underdeveloped I have traveled a lot through out the country and there is no where I have not seen Yoruba developed or not. I have not been to yenagoa before just wanted to know if Yoruba has a significant population there. Anyway take care of ur Yoruba gf well cuz if u don’t he might just have some tough ass brothers who will kick ur ass lol

Hmmm you from Ondo right dats where mah girl friend is from. And Yeah we have a significant yoruba Population in Yenagoa.

scholes0:
Spicy food is good for you.

Well too much of a good thing is bad.

Moneywomen17:
well ijaw are good folks I have some of them as friend mostly the I will call it yorubanise ijaw of Ondo State and I have no idea there is significant population of Yoruba in yenagoa bayelsa

Yenagoa isn't dat underdeveloped though. It's still very Urban they is no tribe u won't find there. they are lots of Yorubas where I stay.

Iam Ijaw I don't stay at the south west I stay at mah hometown Yenagoa but I have a lot of Yoruba friends and Iam a little bit related to Yorubas by a tiny bit about the Pepper though I do enjoy it buh I didnt knw about the benefits of it thanks. Iam Ijaw I don't stay at the south west I stay at mah hometown Yenagoa but I have a lot of Yoruba friends and Iam a little bit related to Yorubas by a tiny bit about the Pepper though I do enjoy it buh I didnt knw about the benefits of it thanks.

I swear Bleep what anyone says I love dis people from they culture to they language to they music. I just love it Bleep it if this ever turns to an all out tribal war. After mah Nigerdeltan people I love the Yorubas the most. Also got love for the Igbos and Hausa too but I have a Yoruba girlfriend and she's making me go gaga. Sha they can reduce the pepper in they food sha.

Dayoto:
hmm

what's hmmm

Naijaphobia:
All blacks in Americas are of Igbo ancestry.... Santera would definitely emanate from Ndigbo.


Igbo amaka!

SMH ignorance at its Core. Any way am not from anyone of these tribes make I soon de Waka before Kasala go bolo.

Lucario007:
This article annoys me slightly as someone who read English.
Anyone who spent a moderate amount of time studying English in the university or borrowing a course from English would easily be able to explain it to you. Back then, we inquired the same question to our lecturers, "why isn't pidgin the official language of Nigeria?"

First, in order to get some facts right, let me tell you now that "pidgin" or "broken" or "vernacular" is NOT a "language". (As a matter of fact, calling it so in an English lecture room back then was the fastest way to annoy our lecturer.)

If i recall correctly, in the stages of language formation, there are:
Pidgins
Creoles
Languages

Now Pidgin is a regional and social variety derived from the proper British English in which it's main use was as a language of commerce and limited communication. In other words, ALL forms of pidgin exists because it was REQUIRED for colonial masters to communicate with their slaves (I.e. us), and as such they invented a bastardized form of the language which was aptly utilized for that purpose.
It was only after the colonial rule that certain countries still utilized the pidgin, most usually due to their lack of proficiency in the proper British English.

Nigerian Pidgin borrows words heavily from other varieties, lacks unique phonological, orthographical, lexical and syntactical cohesiveness, and it is a primitive form of language which only exists today due to its ease of accessibility to Nigerians as a neutral ground of communication between all the different tribes. The Nigerian Pidgin cannot become a language because there are several different varieties of it as spoken according to their users, with each tribe impacting their own signature on the way they use it.

Before the Nigerian pidgin can be considered worthy enough to stand on its own as a language, it needs to undergo several steps and then evolve to become a creole and then undergo even MORE steps before we can even think of calling it a language.

But so far, the chances of that happening are very, very slim.

So in short: bros, abeg fashi that pidgin jawe and go learn beta thing, cause as i dey see am ba, na d correct English sweet pass for mouth.

Stop talking Shit Pidgin is already a Creole as we speak in the Nigerdelta South of Naija. and what language doesn't have lots of Varieties. and to me English is a language with a lot of Varieties and regional dialects. The Standard is Consciously Chosen by the People to write and speak in Formal setting. English is even theorized to be a pidgin. If Pidgin is a bastardization of English then English is a bastardization of Latin French German and lots more. French Spanish and Portuguese are all bastardizations of Latin.

CptBule:
Different from Ijaw seff!

That is the uniqueness and beauty of the south.

United in diversity. Many tongues, one voice!

lol you never Jam they are up to 11 different languages in Bayelsa alone. Izon(ijaw) which also has lots of dialects in which some are incomprehensible to one another. 2 Nembe 3 Epie(Yenagoa) 4 Ogbia. These are the big 4 the rest are Isoko And Urhobo then Engenne. The others I don't know. I heard they was Igbo somewhere sha. teaspoon Unity in Diversity.

CptBule:
It's good you don't support it.
I'm sorry if my earlier post sounded offensive.

I love how Sinikien sounds in my tongue. Tastes/sounds un-Nigerian.

it's a Native Yenagoan name. Yenagoa people speak a very different language from the rest of bayelsa very different from Ijaw lol.

[quote author=CptBule post=68210971]that is the point. a strong culture stands the test of time and tide.
the best that can be changed by civilization are acts seeking to dehumanize a fellow human such as killing of twins, slavery, circumcision of females, gender unequality.

outside these ones, when you touch your names especially sur, dress sense, lifestyle, traditional institutions, festivals, you start to wipe your culture away from face of the earth.

you people cant keep complaining your culture is dying and unrecognized outside borders of Nigeria and yet when you are told the reasons why and how to stop it. you go defensive.

oya keep answering john and dii...ckson as surs na. and be speaking pidgin.

na my culture deh wipe?

all over the world celebs are tracing their african roots and identifying with them, the ones from ur region will have no place to return to, if sooth and bad water havent killed off the remaining population left behind.[/quot


The thing is I wasn't complaining I was just asking of thoughts on it. And I didn't insult u I don't knw hw u got DAT impression. And what's bad about Pidgin its a new language thats developing rapidly. And what i was trying to say is that what is happening in the Niger delta is more of a blending of Cultures with one another creating a new culture. and even if the "Celebs" you're talking about came if they don't like what they see they shouldn't blame us we don't care for the most part. Dem giv us culture to keep for dem. Actually the recent Phenomenon has been quite useful Uniting us under one umbrella I quite think its a bit good rather than playing Itshekiri vs Ijaw. we can Just be called Nigerians for once. Cultures always evolve. ask Americans wether they still practice desame culture as their respective original lands they came from all their cultures got blended into what you seeing now. and you think in a place like Nigeria such things won't happen. plus I don't really like the Name thing I used to answer Godgift my birth name but I just changed it to Sinikien a native name meaning desame Godgift when I was 12. so I don't support this.

CptBule:
what they started answering since birth name right after the white men stepped on the shores of the land.

what names did their fathers who preceded the whites and did not meet them answer?

what names?

#faded

you misunderstood me sir. Why do u people keep dragging ancestors into everything they life is over our is just beginning. are you even sure the the Ancestors of ur Ancestors spoke the language the same language that ur ancestors spoke and observed the same traditions and culture. what I mean is dat a lot have happened in the past to shape culture. things like dis have happened before their is notin new under the sun. catch Mah drift.

mercenary:
That is there name... Go to Rivers state their names are mainly English Like the Briggs, LongJohn, Finebone, Whyte, Green etc... carry your bush life go sidon for gutter

yes thank u they don't change their names that's what they have been answering since birth.

CptBule:
ben bruce, edwin clark, you niger deltans even change your names to sound un-native.

after niger delta, comes igbo in losing their identity. even though igbo pple are using nollywood and govt sponsored igbo language in sec schools to maintain their own.

I understand the Nigerdeltan own (every kilmetre is a different language) But the Igbos I don't get. I thought they were all homogeneous except the Ones who are native to the Niger Delta.

What do you think will happen to the Nigerdeltan languages A hundred years from now. Now that Pidgin is Taking over.

From Benin Sapele Warri To Yenagoa And Port harcourt. most Youths and lots of other Adults less than 30 years of age now speak Naija Pidgin as a Native first language thus neglecting their Tribes language. Two years ago in Bayelsa the Government launched a save ijaw language programme because of This same reason. I don't see much progress in it though. as I'm one of the youths affected by this Phenomenon. Share your thoughts on this Pls.

well let see if I this would be any good. I see a lot of bigoted comments here peeps always complaining. and we do need an airport really.

well I'd appreciate this if it was actually coming from a person born on the streets. A real kpako a person born without a silver spoon. Falz was born rich. I don't support G-boyz though.

AdaFonju:
the same way their is no igbo without an ibibio partenal or maternal lineage

Dunno bout dat

Yyeske:
You are right to an extent but but remember that a creole is different from pidgin.
Pidgin is a language developed by speakers of two or more different languages for simple communication while retaining their original native languages as we have in Nigeria and that is why we still have native speakers of Igbo, Yoruba, Efik, Urhobo, Hausa etc speaking pidgin but they still retain the ability to communicate in their various native languages. This is common among the first and second generation of the pidgin speakers.
A creole develops when the pidgin is now so mixed up and nobody can speak any native language except the pidgin, imagine Nigerians speaking only pidgin at home with their parents at home, place of work, their grandparents and not understanding a word of Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Hausa, Urhobo etc but we only speak pidgin as our local language. This is what is obtainable in Haiti, Sierra Leone and some other countries.
Spanish, French, Italian you sited were first pidgins of Latin before becoming creoles and finally defined different languages as we know today.

Bro you're way back in time. Naija pidgin has already been creolized in the South South Nigerdelta in places like Warri Benin sapele Yenagoa Portharcourt Etc. And ur definition of a creole is misleading the real definition states that A creole is a pidgin which has acquired native speakers this happens when a child is born and it's first language is a pidgin what does it do it expands that pidgin into a language of its own giving it rules grammatical it's own accent. because now the pidgin is no longer under its parent language it's become it's own language the Crepe a natural language. that's the one we speak in the Nigerdelta. it's refined and different from the typical Nigerian own. the first place this happened was in Warri in delta state then Sapele, then Portharcourt then Benin, before Yenagoa which just recently started in the last 20years or so. Iam a proud native speaker of Pidgin Yeniz Yenagoa style. although Iam still trying to speak my parents language with no hope of learning it. and anyway here in the south we speak pidgin with our parents it's very common u make it seem like its a sacrilege. we've accepted it as our language for Betta or for worse.

LordOfNaira:
Forget it, pidgin English is what it is, substandard English. No one has an official language that is a corruption of another language.

Bros Kpor well go read history. read the history of Spanish French Portuguese. they all evolved from Vulgar Latin a broken Substandard form of Latin. and look where they are now. I don't want to say too much but English is like the Latin of this age. during those times The Roman Empire was at its peak colonizing different lands with different cultures and languages the people spoke this vulgar Latin combining it with their native tongues. when the Roman Empire collapsed many of this languages and cultures of the many colonized lands had been displaced so their developed this vulgar Latin into different language which are now called the Romance languages. mind you Vulgar Latin differes just Like many Creole and pidgin differs across lands. like I bet if you hear somebody speaking Tok Pisin you wouldnt be able to understand the person no more than the other person could understand Naija Pidgin.

ortakida:
Let me bust your bubble. Read this:

"If I catch my husband dey sexing with another woman, what I do him?"

That's a combination of Jenifa's English ("What I do him" and pure wrong use of Pidgin English ("sexing".

If you SERIOUSLY dare speak this one outside people go laff you die.

OP your head geh oil. Di tin bi seh Nigerdeltans nai go undastand wetin Yu de try yarn. MI as dem born me na pidgin na I first start yarn I no bin even know seh anything like English bin de sef plus P-men sef no teach me Ijaw Engenne or Epie dem native language. I've never Understood why people said it didn't have rules I can point out differentl grammatical errors when non native speakers speak it.

oziomatv:
No cultural similarities in Nigeria if there is one we would have been understanding each other.
I would have love to have one to change my ways.

SMH

sosisi:
Igbos and Ijaws have the closest blood lineage in Nigeria.
There were migrants from Igboland that populated Opobo town and intermarried with them.
The first jaja of Opobo was an Igbo man from Orlu/Nkwerre area
There's hardly an Ijaw man alive that doesn't have an Igbo maternal or paternal lineage somewhere.
That is a fact

Thats true to some Extent

safarigirl:
This is a good write-up OP, indeed, it is becoming tiring to listen to the radio these days, from Toolz to Toke Makinwa and IK, everyone has a foreign accent. You turn on your TV and switch to Ebony Life and you get the feeling the programs aren't quite Nigerian. Some of them even sound South African.

The owners of these media organisations are not looking for people with Nigerian accents, that is why most of their employees usually finish from some school in the UK or US or at least, some IVY league private school. Everyone else has to work their way up and the more foreign and 'exotic' you sound, the faster the doors will be opened for you. These days, I have to listen keenly to even understand what these people are saying, but that is the world we have found ourselves in.

This brings me to the question:

What does a Nigerian accent sound like?


Being a nation of hundreds of languages, we must all know that the intonation of the people differ according to their ethnicities. The Yoruba man has a distinctive way of speaking, so does the Igbo and Efik man, the Hausa man is even more complicated, because their accents greatly differ according to their level of education. Then, there is a totally different accent in Nigeria, which isn't particularly foreign, but doesn't have the distinct intonation of any ethnicity. This accent is usually borne by those who grew up in cosmopolitan areas like Lagos, Abuja and other such places.


So, let me list some random actors with accents:

Nkem Owoh (Osuofia)
Odunlade Adekola
Ime Bishop (Okon Lagos)
Chidi Mokeme
Sadiq Daba
Nse-Ikpe Etim
Joke Silva


These actors all sound distinctly different, but if a Hollywood actor had to play a Nigerian character, which of them would you suggest he studied to better capture a Nigerian accent? The TRUE Nigerian accent, if we put it that way.

I don't know if you've watched Black Panther, if yes, what did you think of the character M'Baku's accent? Did it sound Nigerian to you?

That accent is what I call the Nigerian Urban Accent and I think it is the Closest to what you'll call the Nigerian Accent. but I still think it varies Though from each urban Area to another. but is still greatly recognized and different from every other Accent. every city adds they own flavour to this Urban accent.

Proudly Reppin Yenagoa.

Banny: Sweet girl or just a girlfriend

Aboi or Abobi: boy

Robs/list/Rabbaz: money

Gem: Weed

Ozed/Pololo/: Prostitute

Mej: Penis

Toro/Pekus: Vagina

Wet/Press/Loot: Bleep

Dab: to dress up

Dabbiz: cloth

Ofiolo: backdoor

Gba/Sub/Shele:Run

Raks: fight

Drill : Beat

Injeke : untrue or Shady story

Ageli : Girl

Many more but no Time.

BabaRamota1980:
The three posters above me need to go and find a "kiss and make up" thread to post on. This here is for political turf tackle.

You say this because we don't go Spewing Tribal Insults like you would love us to. Abi? you Should go find a Yoruba VS Igbo Thread to post on too.

Intrepid01:
Thank you sinistami and emilokoiyawon for the wonderful engagement. Like Emilokoiyawon said, Nigeria is not yet ready for what you're proposing and I don't think we'll be in any distant future.

The South was close to this in the 30s, 40s, 50s but some of the southern elements were not trustworthy. I can confidently tell you Yorubas do not have problem with given settlers native rights in their domain. But it becomes a problem when settlers see the gesture as stupidity and their superior influence. As we speak there are Chiefs in Ibadan who are of eastern dissent and are being treated with respect. they were given the title cos of loyalty and long years of habitation.

The truth is Nigerians are not just black, we are different in so many fronts. Yorubas and Igbos are very different people with different personalities...You can't put the two in the same bucket. Chaos is inevitable

Well what you said holds water N I think Tribes who are most Marginalized by the Government are the ones who are most likely to not give Native Rights to Settlers. and more likely to feel a Tribe is being Stupid if it does dat. Eg Tribes in the Nigerdelta. even though they are seen as Hospitable to strangers. Thank u though I like conversations like this without the Normal Tribal E fights always.

Emilokoiyawon:
I agree with the emboldened. I actually have chosen (recently) to recognize/respect ALL life. My choice is to see the same life in all humans. However, religious and ethnic identities are very strong. Not only in Nigeria but all over the world. In seeking to find out what works, we have to factor in these realities. Nevertheless, you are quite perceptive for your age and I would advise you to not let go of your optimism - at the very least your heart is in the right place. But recognize this : - To get a great society you need to work on producing great people. Not the other way around.

I understand thanks

Emilokoiyawon:
Not clear what you mean by Warri, Portharcourt etc. At any rate your intentions are very laudable. However, I am not so sure about the effectiveness of your method (as I stated earlier). Sometimes its almost impossible to legislate 'progress.' It took America 144 years after the abolition of slavery before a black man became president. And even today black Americans still face some serious institutional racism and discrimination. Great Britain has never elected a non-white person as Prime Minister -ever. I rather prefer a regional system of government - this in my opinion will be the most effective in making Nigeria a more successful country.

Forgive me am only 19 so maybe am just stupid and young buh aren't we all black why can't we just be one. I don't think we dat different from each other like the way they make us to be.
About the Warri and PH thing I mean Cities with mixed ethnicities already do have the problems u speak of I was just agreeing with what u said.

Mtccheeewwwww The Boys Brigade Im self No bi Cultist Full.