Talk:Nigerian Pidgin

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Untitled
I doubt that there are no native speakers. The language is to a large extend identical to Cameroon Pidgin (high mutual intelegibility) and in Cameroon there are definitly native speakers in some of the cities (e.g. Limbe). It would be astonishing if the same was not true for Nigeria. The grammar of the language differs considerably from english, so I would definitely call it a creole, not a dialect of english. Nannus 20:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I've reworded the lead paragraph to acknowledge the pidgin/creole/acrolect continuum mentioned by Ihemere (2006, cited in article). -- Avenue 13:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Merging wih Nigerian Pidgin English
Yes, but not sure which gets merged into which. --A12n 00:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Merge both into Naija Broken and leave the two existing articles as redirects. We seem to handle pidgins by referring to them by the names with which they are referred in the relevant pidgin, e.g., Krio, Gullah.  It would stand to reason that this should be treated the same way.  Heather 19:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * However, in the case of those articles, the current name is the most common name. Speakers and non-speakers alike call it Krio, not Sierra Leonean Criole. However, here, Nigerian Pidgin is the most widely-recognized name. Picaroon (t) 23:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I have trouble understanding why you'd want to merge them. The grammar, vocabulary, and words are marketly different. IT'd be like merging Kreyol with French, or Papiamentu with Portuguese. It's a mix of languages with english, it is certianly not purely english. For an example, see how you do with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggWMWgRkK_4 -- keep in mind this is an american who moved there as a child, his word choice may not be as distant from standard english as you would expect. --—  r obbiemuffin  page talk 16:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Questioning the redirect
Nigerian English and Naija are 2 different languages. Naija is more slang and informal, and has foreign influences. While Nigerian English on the other-hand is a language of the English with some grammar changes and spellings by Nigerians, but not necessarily a Pidgin. --71.204.139.111 (talk) 00:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Is this Nigerian Pidgin or not?
Just wondering...there has been a way of speaking among the younger generation in the country since the 1980s, "no matter how dem try-o" always causing an "-o" to get appended at the end of a verb. May this be called Nigerian Pidgin or is this yet something else? I'd also like to ask this here because it's mentioned nowhere in the article. -andy 77.7.110.160 (talk) 15:35, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The Nigerian pidgin is spectacularly unique to its origin, which is Nigeria, its Neither an English nor a Pidgin-English, as it doesn't conform to the rules of English nor can an English man fully understand the Nigeria Pidgin if not learnt or heard before. If we are to reason rationally we'd come to a conclusion that this is a language related to its owner and no sub-owner or parent owner. The Philosophy of language makes us understand that a language is a noun while meaning acts as a verb which explains the language. A Nigerian brought up within the horizon of such language will understand its intonation and refer meaning to it. It's simply not a Pidgin-English but a Nigeria-Pidgin.

"No matter how dem try o" -- is mostly used in the Nigerian-Pidgin. e.g During adverts programs such language usage are expressed. so i would say its a Nigeria Pidgin, except there is another context in which such language is mostly used by other countries.

I am also Nigerian & have studied my people's unnative language, which is pidgin language. Ojuolape878 (talk) 07:53, 3 June 2015 (UTC)


 * A "Pidgin English" is a pidgin (language with no native speakers, developed ad hoc by people with no other language in common) whose vocabulary is taken largely from English; but the name does not imply that a speaker of standard English can understand it. — Who or what is the "owner" of a language? —Tamfang (talk) 09:17, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

"Una" as used in Nigerian Pidgin is not of igbo origin as conjuctured. It is rather a contraction of "ustedes" (Spanish) or its portugese rendering

Jamaican Creole comparison
I feel a direct comparison between Nigerian Pidgin and Jamaican Creole isn't particularly salient as a lot of the features discussed in that section are found in many African-substrate pidgins and creoles. Reduplication in particular is found in a large percentage of creoles worldwide. I'm going to work on turning it into a general comparison with other creoles if there are no objections. Ebolamunkee (talk) 03:44, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Its 2022 and instead of linking 'Nigerian Pidgin' to the Krio language from which it clearly originates, we still have this dubious or forced connection with Jamaican Patois. The Sierra Leone Creoles are the direct descendants of resettled Jamaican Maroons in Freetown (1800), not Nigerians. Yet it is the Nigerian Pidgin that is somehow connected to their language. Not only is it laughable, but the reality is that it is the Saro Creoles of recaptive stock from Freetown, resettled in Nigeria (1800s), who are the progenitors of the variety of 'Pidgin' spoken in Nigeria today. Instead of highlighting this historical fact in the article, the page-watchers are still (in 2022) having fantasies about some bizzare connection of their language to Jamaican Patios. Embarrassing. Inamo11 (talk) 17:16, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Spanish removed
I removed the unreferenced Spanish influence. From Talk:Mediterranean Lingua Franca:
 * English words like "savvy" (from sabir) and "pickaninny" can be traced to Lingua Franca.


 * I've removed these two pending citation, at least "pickaninny". The OED gives:

The word is evidently one of those diffused around the Atlantic coasts through the Portuguese-based pidgins associated with trade (and esp. the slave trade) in the 17th cent. A Spanish origin is much less likely; although the diminutive adjective in -ino does occur in Spanish (cf. {dag}pequenino, {dag}pequennino (both 1200 or earlier), {dag}pequeñino (1549 or earlier)), such attestations are very rare in comparison to the usual diminutive pequeñito (1410 or earlier); the Cuban Spanish form attested in quot. 1849 is comparatively late, and may reflect borrowing from English. In support of the Portuguese pidgin origin there is the evidence of Sranan (see quot. 1796) and the occurrence of pickaninny in West African pidgins in the 19th cent. (current West African pidgins have the form pikin which prob. originated in Surinam and spread from there to Jamaica, thence to Sierra Leone (Krio), and West Africa more generally: see M. Huber Ghanaian Pidgin Eng. (1999) 85, 103). The theory that the word originated as a compound equivalent to Spanish pequeño niño little child or Portuguese pequeno negro (cf. Sranan pikien-ningre ‘negerkinderen, kreolen’ given by H. C. Focke, Neger-Engelsch Woordenboek (1855)) is unlikely. -- Error (talk) 02:03, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

"Brokin"
As far as I know, this is not an actual term, but just an onomatopoeic spelling of "Broken". In other words there is no denotational or connotational difference between "broken" and "brokin". I submit that using the spelling "brokin" can be misleading in the sense that it might convey the impression that it's an actual term, rather than a reflection of common pronunciation in Nigeria. In this case, it would be preferable to spell it "broken". Orientalduck98 (talk) 04:27, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I have no idea what the distinction in pronunciation between "broken" and "brokin" is supposed to be. Can we get some IPA? --Mocha2007 (talk) 16:44, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Changing the Title of the Article to Naija language
I am considering changing the name of the article from Nigerian Pidgin to Naija language. Naija (indigenously written as Naijá Languej) has been the official name of the language since the 2009 conference of the Naija Languej Akademi in Ibadan, Nigeria. There is now a standard orthography, as well as lexical and syntaxical developments. Many recent formal articles and papers written in the language or referencing the language in Nigerian and use "Naija". Pidgin is also not an accurate definition for the language. In addition Naija has already been commonly used as the name for the language. "A de tok Naija" (I speak Naija) is a common phrase used to signify to the others that you can speak Nigerian Pidgin. Since I understand Nigerian Pidgin has been used historically, I think naming the page Naija language (Nigerian Pidgin) is also an option. Especially considering this differentiates the page from Naija ( the adjective) and Naija (another name for Nigeria)

Citation for the name change: https://www.ifra-nigeria.org/naija-corner/naija-languej-akedemi Proceedings of the 2009 conference: https://www.ifra-nigeria.org/publications/e-papers/conferences/18-naija-proceedings-of-the-conference-on-nigerian-pidgin

Corpus: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2155/courtin.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.127.92.5 (talk) 20:18, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

spelling
"chook" is spelt "chuk" 102.88.63.73 (talk) 16:46, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

unu

 * Another Igbo word much used in pidgin is una, derived from the Igbo word unu which is equivalent to the English term "you people".

Is it the pronoun you-plural, or something else? —Tamfang (talk) 21:20, 27 June 2023 (UTC)