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| Nigerian Pidgin | |
|---|---|
| Naijá (languej) Naija | |
| Native to | Nigeria |
Native speakers | L1: 4.7 million L2: 116 million (2020)[1] |
English Creole
| |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pcm |
| Glottolog | nige1257 |
Nigerian Pidgin orNPE,[2] also known simply asPidgin or asNaijá in scholarship, is anEnglish-based creole language spoken as alingua franca or vehicular language acrossNigeria. The language is sometimes referred to asPijin orVernacular, and It has over time become the speech form with the widest geographical coverage and largest amount of speakers in Nigeria besides English.[2]
Coming into existence during the 17th and 18th centuries as a result of contact between Britons and Africans involved in theAtlantic slave trade,[3] in the 2010s, a common orthography was developed for Pidgin which has been gaining significant popularity in giving the language a harmonized writing system.[4][5]
It can be spoken as apidgin, a creole, a dialect, or adecreolisedacrolect by different speakers, who may switch between these forms depending on the social setting.[6] Variations of what this article refers to as "Nigerian Pidgin" are also spoken acrossWest andCentral Africa, in countries such asBenin,Ghana, andCameroon.[7]
Nigerian Pidgin is commonly used throughout the country and across ethnic groups, but it does not have official status.[8]
In 2011,Google launched a search interface in Pidgin.[9] In 2017, theBBC startedBBC News Pidgin to provide services in Pidgin.[3]
Nigerian Pidgin varies by location which also determines the influencing substrate language affecting the superstrate English structure resulting in varied flavours. Dialects of Nigerian Pidgin include; TheSapele–Warri–Ughelli dialect spoken in the western Niger Delta area, which is also sometimes grouped together with theBenin City dialect that has influences from theBini language due to their geographical closeness and common features; ThePort Harcourt dialect that has a mix of influences and elements from the mixed ethnicities indigenous toRivers State and the eastern Niger Delta; TheLagos or Western dialect which is highly influenced byYoruba lexical borrowings/linguistic elements andcalque translations;[2] and theOnitsha or Eastern variety that draws some influences fromIgbo.[8]
According to Obiechina (1984), Nigerian Pidgin English can be subdivided into five dialectal areas or variants;[2]
Omamor (1992) however identifies only 4 varieties, viz: Lagos Pidgin, Port Harcourt Pidgin, Warri-Sapele-Benin Pidgin, and Northern Nigeria Pidgin.[2]
Many of the 250 or more ethnic groups in Nigeria can converse in the language, though many speakers will infuse words from their native tongues. For example:
Nigerian Pidgin is most widely spoken in the oil-richNiger Delta region where a lot of the population now speak it as a first language, due to the region's high linguistic diversity and the lack of an indigenouslingua franca.[11] There are accounts of pidgin being spoken first in colonial Nigeria before being adopted by other countries along the West African coast.[12]
While Pidgin is spoken by many, there are wide swathes of Nigeria where Pidgin is not spoken or understood, especially among those with neither secular education nor exposure in the far northern reaches of Nigeria.[citation needed]
Nigerian Pidgin, along with the various pidgin and creole languages ofWest Africa, share multiple similarities to the various English-based Creoles found in the Caribbean. Linguists[who?] posit that this is because most of the enslaved that were taken to theNew 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 theCaribbean are for the most part mutually intelligible with the creole languages of West Africa.[13]
The presence of repetitive phrases inCaribbean Creole such assu-su (gossip) andpyaa-pyaa (sickly) mirror the presence of such phrases in West African languages such asbam-bam, which means "complete" in the Yoruba language.Repetitious phrases are also very present in Nigerian Pidgin, such askoro-koro meaning "clear vision",yama-yama meaning "disgusting", anddoti-doti meaning "garbage".
Words of West African origin inSurinamese Creole (Sranan Tongo) andJamaican Patois, such asunu andBajan dialectwunna oruna – West African Pidgin (meaning "you people", a word that comes from theIgbo wordunu orunuwa 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 Caribbean, as does the presence of words and phrases that are identical in the languages on both sides of the Atlantic, such asMe a go tell dem (I'm going to tell them) andmake we (let us).
Acopuladeh ordey is found in both Caribbean Creole and Nigerian Pidgin English.The phraseWe 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 sayWi de a London and the Surinamese way isWi de na London.)The word originates from the Igbo worddi meaning the same thing and pronounced similarly[citation needed]:anu di na ofe (literally "meat is in pot") andanyi di na london (lit. "we are in London").Other similarities, such aspikin (Nigerian Pidgin for "child") andpikney orpickney (used in islands likeJamaica,St.Vincent,Antigua andSt. Kitts, akin to the standard-English pejorative/epithetpickaninny) andchook (Nigerian Pidgin for "poke" or "stab") which corresponds with theTrinidadian creole wordjuk, and also corresponds tochook used in other West Indian islands.[14]
Being derived partly from the present day Edo/Delta and other south South area of Nigeria, there are still some words left over from the Portuguese language in pidgin English (Portuguese ships traded slaves from theBight 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" issaber in Portuguese.[15] (According to themonogenetic theory of pidgins,sabir was a basic word inMediterranean Lingua Franca, brought to West Africa through Portuguese pidgin. An English cognate issavvy.) Also,pikin or "pickaninny" comes from the Portuguese wordspequeno andpequenino, which mean "small" and "small child" respectively.[16]
Similar to theCaribbean Creole situation, Nigerian Pidgin is mostly used in informal conversations. Nigerian Pidgin has no status as an official language.Nigerian English is used in politics, education, science, and media.[17] In Nigeria, English is acquired through formal education.[17] As English has been in contact with multiple different languages in Nigeria, Nigerian English has become much more prominent and is very similar to bothAmerican andBritish English, and it is often referred to as a group of different sub-varieties.[17] Although there is not a formal description of Nigerian English, scholars agree that Nigerian English is a recognizable and unique variety of English.[17]
Nigerian Pidgin, like many pidgins and creoles, has a simplerphonology than thesuperstrate language. It has 23consonants, sevenvowels, and twotones.[18]
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labial–velar | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | ɡ | kp | ɡb | ||||||
| Affricate | tʃ | dʒ | ||||||||||||
| Tap | r | |||||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | h | ||||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||||||||||
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u |
| High-mid | e | o |
| Low-mid | ɛ | ɔ |
| Open | a | |
Nigerian Pidgin has been described as atonal language, having a high tone and a low tone. The high tone can be written with anacute accent, and the low tone, though typically left unmarked, can be written with agrave accent.[19] Additionally, monosyllabic high-tone words shift into a high falling tone before a pause.[19]
| Pidgin word (tones fully marked) | Tone pattern | English meaning |
|---|---|---|
| /bàbá/ | LH | father |
| /bábà/ | HL | Roman Catholic priest |
| /fádá/ | HH | father |
| /fàdá/ | LH | Roman Catholic 'father' |
| /sìsí/ | LH | young maid |
| /sísì/ | HL | sixpence (5 kobo) |
However, this has been contested by subsequent linguists, due to variance in pitchintonation on lexemes, especially for questions.[20] One rival suggestion is that Nigerian Pidgin "is something of apitch-accent language in which, given a word there may be only one high tone, or one sequence thereof in opposition to one low sequence";[20]downdrift is attested in the intonational system.[20]
Most written texts in Nigerian Pidgin do not show any tonal markings, and do not reflect any lexical pitch differences.[21]
Ayenbi, Oti Frances Okpeyeaghan (13 December 2024)."Endangered minority language : a case study of the itsekiri language in Nigeria".Université de Strasbourg. Université de Strasbourg: 47. Retrieved23 October 2025.
Media related toNigerian Pidgin at Wikimedia Commons
