By Olakunle Agboola – It has been attested that many Nigerians growing up in the ’50s’ and ’60s’ could not believe that Pidgin English would be widely accepted and become a popular language in the recent age. The elites will never allow their kids to speak pidgin English at home and school as it is called “cut and join” English and is perceived as spoken by those who do not have a formal education.
Growing up, I could not speak pidgin English fluently because of its perception as the language of the “street” which is widely spoken across the major cities in Nigeria, most especially Lagos which is a megacity and metropolis state that houses a lot of ethnicities across West Africa.
Pidgin language is a mix of English, words blended with local language across West Africa which has some of its roots of manifestation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade: It is believed to have developed as a way for foreign merchants to communicate with locals in West Africa at the time.
It is attested that the Portuguese were the first group of Europeans to visit and explore coastal Nigeria, especially around the area now known geo-politically as the Niger Delta. They started trading with the people of the region from as early as 1469AD and they established strong diplomatic ties between some of the great kingdoms of the region and Portugal.
They later established schools and churches where they taught Portuguese and the doctrines of Christianity in the region. This brought their language close to the languages of the Niger Delta for an extended period of time. Niger Delta region was made up of diverse communities of Annang, Edo, Efik, Ibibio, Igbo, Ijaw, Isoko, Itsekiri and Isoko peoples with no known or well-established common or universal language of communication among these communities, therefore, Portuguese-based pidgin became a standard of communication.
After the Portuguese left the region, the Dutch followed and traded at the eastern end of the region for about half a century. They were then followed by the French who visited the region intermittently till even after the English arrived in 1650 AD to take effective control of trade in the region.
The English were initially interested in trade. But between the 1700s and the 1800s, this initial interest metamorphosed from trade to religion, from religion to education, and to a colonial focus. These changing interests came to mean change for the language situation of the Niger Delta.
And with the introduction of English into the Nigerian environment, the existing Portuguese-based pidgin of the Niger Delta started evolving in the new direction of the language of the new politically dominant group, the English. In time English, the language of the English, supplanted Portuguese as the major verifier. By the 1900s, the now stable English-based Naijá started spreading across the emerging Nigerian nation.
The popularity of Pidgin English glided by the time Nigeria gained her independence from British colony in 1960. The language had not only become popular among those who could not speak standard British English but became commonly spoken among the multilingual populations of the big cities. Today the language has more speakers than any other language in the country with huge respect to Niger-Delta who is believed they are the pioneers of Nigerian Pidgin English and no region in Nigeria speaks the language better than them.
Nigerians are widely travelled for different reasons and using pidgin language as a means of communication abroad. There is a strong connection of Pidgin English among Nigerians and Ghanaians living abroad, but became more visible through music as these two countries began exporting their art using Pidgin English as a means of communication.
Afrobeat star and activist, Fela Kuti played a key role in bringing the language of the masses to the global stage in the 1970s and 1980s using pidgin lyrics to dress down Nigeria’s leaders and educated elite while speaking to the common man. Today Pidgin is adopted everywhere from Nigeria’s popular Nollywood movies to the lyrics of modern Afrobeats pop music which is taking the world in a storm.
A lot of people get to know, relate and learn Pidgin English through Afrobeat music and Nollywood movies. This has exposed African culture and continually make Pidgin English a phenomenal language. The language perceived as local and only for those who do not have formal education is now heavily spoken by the elites, politicians, educated and unifying Nigerians with other African countries living abroad including the Caribbean and African American. There are countless tutorials on pidgin on YouTube and digital platforms researching the local languages such as Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and Ashanti to mention a few, which make this language unique.
The BBC understood the peculiarity of Pidgin English with a huge audience across Africa, which made them launch BBC Pidgin in 2017. Today they have a massive audience across the world maximizing the digital space of making Pidgin English more popular. The pidgin media has never been the same since the increase in growth of Afrobeats, Nollywood movies, African fashion, arts and tourism. The medium of expanding Pidgin English is becoming bigger, maximising social and digital space with limitless transportation.
Many who experienced Pidgin English in the “50s” could not believe that a ‘cut and join’ English would be accepted and become a global language. They could not see these days that Pidgin English would stand firmly beside British English without intimidation. 50 years to come the world might be surprised what this language could have become, if not 90 per cent of the world population would have learned how to speak Pidgin English fluently.
Kindly follow us on twitter:@AfricanVoice2
