Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English power

[Hetty ter Haar]

Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English power

Work has started to study and standardise a language spoken by
millions but denied official status, raising hopes for education and
communication across West Africa

Yinka Ibukun
Friday November 12 2010
Guardian Weekly


http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/09/nigeria-pidgin-learning-english-ibukun


The traffic gridlock of Nigeria's main city Lagos means that Albanus
Olekaibe, a 44-year-old contract driver, spends more of his day
listening to radio presenters than to anyone else.

He has been following reports of the latest bribery scandal to beset
the World Cup football authorities and he can speak knowledgeably on
the midterm elections in the US. But the commentary on current affairs
that spills from this big, cheerful man would be incomprehensible to
the average English speaker. Olekaibe uses familiar English words but
strings them together in a unique way, interspersed with phrases from
Nigeria's 500 other languages. Like some 50 million Nigerians he
speaks Nigerian Pidgin English.

His source of news is Wazobia FM [http://www.wazobiafm.com" title="],
the first radio station in Nigeria to broadcast in Pidgin and
registering huge audiences as a result. The station's newsreaders
report on the impending monsoon in south-east Asia: "Dem dey run comot
for dem house" (People are fleeing their homes).

Long considered the language of the uneducated, Nigerian Pidgin
English, with its oscillating tones and playful imagery, is now spoken
by Nigerians of every age, social class and regional origin.

In a country with wide disparity in education provision, Pidgin
operates as a de facto lingua franca, a bridge between social classes,
ethnicities and educational levels. Public announcements and
information campaigns are often made in Pidgin, which has a wider
reach than standard English, the official language of this former
British colony.

But while Nigerian Pidgin first emerged nearly 600 years ago, when
trade with Europe was first established in the Niger Delta, and is now
estimated to be used by 50 million people, and with variants spoken in
Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the language still has no standard
rules for spelling, grammar or an official dictionary.

As a Nigerian linguist once put it, "Na like pikin we no get papa, we
no get mama" (It is like a child without a father or mother). Everyone
uses Pidgin to serve their purpose, but no one looks out for it.

That is what the Naija Languej Akademi is seeking to change by
creating the first reference guide for Pidgin English,

which will include an alphabet, a comprehensive dictionary, a standard
guide to orthography and an authoritative history of the language.

"The fact that it is a very recent development makes the language very
interesting from an intellectual point of view," said Bernard Caron, a
French linguist and secretary of the Akademi, a project set up last
year with French government funding to promote research in the social
sciences and the humanities, and enhance collaborative work between
scholars in France and west Africa.

Caron and his mostly Nigerian colleagues prefer to call the language
Naija Languej, arguing that the term Pidgin or the alternative "broken
English" are either inaccurate or derogatory.

Pidgin is a definition applied to simplistic languages that are prone
to die out. If, however, they evolve and acquire native speakers, they
are categorised as creole languages.

The Naija Languej Akademi argues that Nigerian Pidgin has acquired
native speakers in the southern Niger Delta, from where it developed
as a means of communication between local people and European traders.

The interest in Pidgin is not only intellectual but also political.
Because similar forms of Pidgin are shared across west Africa's
English-speaking countries, many believe it could evolve from a
national lingua franca into a regional one.

The value of Pidgin has also been brought into focus by falling
attainment in standard English. This year's NECO exam, one of two
tests used to administer secondary school leaving certificates,
revealed that only 20% of the 1.1 million candidates passed the
English-language paper, fuelling a national debate over the dire state
of education standards.

"We even have 14-year-old children in our programme who cannot read,"
said Patrick Oragwu, co-ordinator of Oasis, a not-for profit project
establishing libraries in government funded schools to encourage
reading.

"The main problem is that the Nigerian education system has failed.
All the languages students are exposed to [have an impact on] their
ability to read and understand properly. Not just Pidgin, but all
languages affect them."

Urban Nigerians are used to switching from one language to the next,
but without good grounding in basic grammar and orthography of either
English or their mother tongue, code switching becomes more difficult.

Addressing the needs of multilingual societies was first highlighted
40 years ago when Unesco published a study showing that primary-school-
aged children learn better when taught in their mother tongue. Mother-
tongue education was championed in Nigeria in the 1970s by the
pioneering education minister Babs Fafunwa, who died aged 87 last
month, but the policy was never implemented.

Dr Christine Ofulue, a linguist and member of the Akademi, explains
that teaching mother tongues in schools, including Pidgin, will
improve students' English. "We call it contrastive linguistics," she
said. "It's the opposite to saying: 'Let's not teach so we don't
confuse them.' When you do that you do confuse them and you can use
the same argument for other languages."

But before any strong case can be made for teaching Pidgin as a
language in schools, spelling first needs to be standardised. And so
members of the Naija Languej Akademi have tasked themselves with
answering questions such as where to put accents to indicate vowel
sounds: far-reaching decisions that few 21st-century linguists get to
make.

Outside the world of academics and policymakers, Nigerian Pidgin
English is simply the way millions of Nigerians communicate.

Olekaibe's dial is permanently turned to Wazobia FM, overlooking about
20 other stations on offer. Lately though he has been missing the
familiar voices that make Lagos traffic more bearable because his
stereo is broken. "My radio don bad, a just de wait make dem fix am!"

Due to a production error, the original version of this article stated
that Pidgin originated in Nigeria 60 years ago, this has been
corrected to 600 years


guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010

[Tony Agbali]

Do this piece mean that this Radio Wazobia is the first to utilize Nigerian Pidgin English, or simply the first to broadcast its materials entirely in Pidgin?   Else ever prior to this Radio WAzobiae, they were many news items in Nigerian Pidgin English or Nigerian English on different Nigerian radio stations. For instance the popular radio drama "Waka about"  in the 1970s through the 1980s on national radio was in Nigerian Pidgin English.    Also different Radio Stations like the Port-Harcourt Garden City FM had long broadcast its news and other items in Nigerian Pidgin English, especially its News in Special English.     The (old) Anambra State Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio also had many productions and broadcast items in Nigerian Pidgin English. The same was true of the Bendel Broadcasting Station Radio and Television news and other broadcasts.   Among private ventures, Minaj (Menaj ???) FM Radio broadcasting I think from Obosi, Onitsha was also versatile in utilizing Pidign English for news, ads, and other productions like drama.   Even more significant was the use by the Radio Democracy (later Radio Kudirat) associated with the Nigerian exilic opposition during the Abacha dictatorship, whose many programs were broadcast in Nigerian Pidgin English. I guess, this is one subjective review, many others can identify other Nigerian radio and television stations that utilized Nigerian Pidgin English vastly and broadly for their media outreach.   Having sketched the Nigeria media long utilization and versatility of Nigerian Pidgin English in radio broadcast and theatric production, it is a good thing that there is an heightened efforts to harness its potentials. In fact, I am looking forward to seeing certain literary productions like the Christian bible, Moslem Koran (Quran) and other popular literatures translated in Nigerian Pidgin English. In some sense, the Cameroonians are farther in this perspective, as I know that the bible and other Christian prayers have long been rendered in pidgin Cameroonian style.    Even further than Nigeria, one would look to joint venture across the western African region in broadening the sphere of pidgin formalized diffusive acceptance and utilization in literature and other genres as formal speech and literary devices.   Back in the days, the Pidgin English of Papa Ajasco in Ikebe (Superstar) magazine always offered spices for eliminating dullness.  Hence, it is not impossible altogether, as some forms of this language have been literarily and media (albeit yellow, junk journalism mainly) and also partially or episodically on radio and television.   It is now time to make this language more robust and functionally relevant as a vehicle of acute thought expression, communication, science and technology, entertainment, and laudable utilization.  For in spite of its vast usage, there have always been a pejorative tag assigned to this unique and fun language. --- On Sat, 11/13/10, Hetty ter Haar <olda...@googlemail.com> wrote:

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[Akurang-Parry, Kwabena]

But while Nigerian Pidgin first emerged nearly 600 years ago, when
trade with Europe was first established in the Niger Delta, and is now
estimated to be used by 50 million people, and with variants spoken in
Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the language still has no standard
rules for spelling, grammar or an official dictionary.

Kwabena Akurang-Parry, Ph. D.
(Professor of History)
Dept of History
Shippensburg University
Shippensburg, PA 17257
USA

Phone 717 477 1286
Fax 7171 477 4062
________________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Hetty ter Haar [olda...@googlemail.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 6:23 PM

To: USA Africa Dialogue Series

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English power

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/09/nigeria-pidgin-learning-english-ibukun

--

[Akurang-Parry, Kwabena]

Just brainstorming oh, folks! Does the statement below mean that "Pidgin Englishes" spoken in other West African countries originated from Nigeria? Is this about privileging our big sibling! Please, read this:

"But while Nigerian Pidgin first emerged nearly 600 years ago, when
trade with Europe was first established in the Niger Delta, and is now
estimated to be used by 50 million people, and with variants spoken in
Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the language still has no standard
rules for spelling, grammar or an official dictionary."

Kwabena

________________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Hetty ter Haar [olda...@googlemail.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 6:23 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English power

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/09/nigeria-pidgin-learning-english-ibukun

--

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Kwabena,

You read it right. That's also how I interpreted it too. I suspect that the writer is following the weight of numbers as historians would say. More speakers in Naija (50 million, but the number is actually higher, I think) means that it is the cradle of pidgin from whence all West African English pidgins sprang. Very sloppy in my opinion. Where is the evidence? I suppose that it is also partly a sneaky proxy manifestation of Nigerian pidgin nationalism. Many Nigerians believe that their pidgin is the purest among the West African pidgins and that it is superior to all others. I have heard this myself. That's why they make fun of Liberian, Anglophone Cameroonian, Ghanaian, and Sierra Leone pidgins.  Even within Nigeria, pidgin purists locate the the purest like to point to the Warri axis as the home of the purest pidgin in Naija. I say, let all pidgins bloom.

--
There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.


---Mohandas Gandhi

[Tony Agbali]

They were different kinds of pidgin languages that emerged along the west African littorals and diffused due to commerce.  Some of these pidginized languages had their superstrates in Portuguese, probably among the early ones hence giving origin to words like "pickin"(pikini, pikin, etc), "palaver" (from palabra, palava referencing conversations especially trade haggling, hence it taking the nuance of trouble later on in Nigeria's English Pidgin), and many such others.    Some forms of Dutch pidgin forms also probably evolved around the coast, and in Ghana, Gambia, and those places where the Dutch replaced the Portguese, and English Pidgin forms came much later.  What I am not clear is whether the Danes in West Africa, did have such enduring impact to have generated any pidginized language form.  I am of the impression that the quick transitional successions of power and commercial controls, as it unfolded especially in West Africa, did not give the Danes enough time to stamp their linguistic influence.    In any case, there are as many pidgin languages and many Englishes in Western and Central Africa- stretching from the Senegal/Gambia area to Gabon.   What would be interesting for historical linguistics is to find out whether the area of the Soyo or Mani-Congo, and those places that first had encountered the Portuguese, then the Dutch, Danes, French, and English- at times in revolving successions- still have subsisting pidgin forms within their current functional languages of communications- or at the very least to figure what words from that era beginning in the 15th Century are extant within their current linguistic repertoire.    Most of my past efforts along pidgin forms dealt mainly with the West African forms, and those associated with English. But I do realize there are pidginized forms of the other Eurocentric languages that Africans adopted, due to colonialism. The area of Pidgin/Creole research remain a very vast area for ongoing exploration.   However, the diffusive influence of the Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) for instance is a relatively recent phenomenon, that spread rapidly in the 1980s and afterwards.  In fact, while going through elementary school, in my neck of the wood, it was English or the vernacular language that were functional languages; with the vernacular languages often derided, forcing one to adopt the taught British/Nigerian standard English.    Visiting towns, especially in 1980 when I came to Makurdi to spend vacation with my mother, hearing the pidgin English made me laughed, because it was not supposed to be for the educated and civilized. On the other hand, I made friendship with Lade, an avid pidgin speaker who laughed and mocked my standard English. I quickly became a pidgin-English convert- unfortunately not to the pleasure of my parents.   In some respect, I am glad I did. But within few years afterwards, this pidgin current had infiltrated my neck of the wood, and with real funny broken ones, like the one the driver of the school where my dad was Principal always speak- "Na me, na you dey come." "Na him sai na me bring the bus key." We used to crack up, because we felt then that he lacked competent facility of what we considered as correct pidgin enough. But for sure, we always were able to decode and discern what that driver always said, since when a communicative impasse develops, he resorts to our native Igala language.    Yet, what I now wonder, is was his the typical broken English or was it pidgin? Further, at what point does the broken English language though using vocabulary peculiar to pidgin forms -dem, na, dey- evolve into acceptable and competent pidgin English(es)? Whose pidgin is the normative or appropriately correct one? While, as Moses Ochonu, note most Nigerians would allude to the Niger Delta (Warri, Waffi [not like wi-fi but more like waffle]) form as the "original" or "purist," in reality the Nigerian English form is dynamically shifting and changing its lexicons, and at times structural forms. Recently, I learnt that "pepper" means something different from what I would have imagined it to mean, denoting "money."   As these transformations occur does the identity of the pidgin English remain the same, as pidgin English(es) or simply another form of "Nigerian," "Ghanaian," "Cameroonian," "Liberian" or "Sierra Leonean" evolved languages?  In fact, the major transformation in the pidgin forms pertains to lexical infusion from the indigenous African language speech or lexicons.  This process of heightened re-lexification, through such cooptation of new and multiple lexemes from the indigenous languages repertoire radically transform and absorb the aboriginal superstrate- English, French, Portuguese, etc- and linguistic contents.     Where and when this occurs massively, I denote "pletholexification" or "plenalexification" as occuring, indicative of the incorporation and integration of varying [pletho-for many; plena-for full'] lexemes fom diverse African languages- Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, etc into the pidgin linguistic repertoire. At this point, then it actually beckons upon taking another critical look at the language in reevaluating its identity.    As these shifts occur can we rightfully assert that the Nigerian or other pidgin Englishes (of course, within Nigerian pidgin English variations exists) continue to be appropriately assumed as an English based language, or simply another language like Nigerian Speak Language? Thus, can we  alsoenvisage the Nigerian Pidgin English as evolving into Nigerian Pidgin Yoruba? Or can we realistically even still speak of it as pidgin? Is this deformed or enhance pidgin? Or, is it neither Pidgin nor English?     Shifts within pidgin phenomena can be both highly selective and equally very integrally infectious in its widespread nature. At times, there is a regional dimension to its selectivity, which too seems to quickly yield to diffusive tendencies, hence stamping the language changes swiftly in shaping it beyond the regional ambience or speech communities where these shifts/alterations/insertions were first introduced.     For instance, the following words are no longer restricted to their regional domains within Nigeria; the Igbo biko for please, the Yoruba- "Se" (almost equating so,), the Hausa- "Ya Mutu" for dead, or such expressions as "E don die like Dodo" (Dodo is Yoruba for Plantain).  The factors for the rapid diffusion of these variant or additional regional 'integrals' tend to be mainly due to travel, the mass media, education, intermarriages, commerce, military and government postings, interethnic residential interactions.   English based pidgins are not the only ones that are affected by such changes, as the anthropologist, Johannes Fabian, equally indicates of Katanga Swahili.   Significantly, it is at what point that we can conveniently mark these referential changes as constituting a clear cut-off point, indicative of a full and independent language formation on its own merit and measured according to its rules and dynamics, that accentuate scholarly fascination regarding these pidginized language forms.   Of course, we all know that many Europeanized forms followed similar processes. But is what is true for these Europeanized languages in the past necessarily going to hold true and constant in our perceptive and scholarly understanding of the statuses of our kinds of non-western and contemporary pidgin forms?   In fact, having said that, I think it is highly intriguing and ironical, all at once, that it is a Radio Station with the name "WAZOBIA" that is asserted as avidly promoting the Nigerian Pidgin English(es), rather than any form of "Yoruhausigbo" - Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo in their WAZOBIAc combinations. --- On Sat, 11/13/10, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote: