Nigerian Pidgin or NPE, also known simply as Pidgin or as Naijá in scholarship, is an English-based creole language spoken as a lingua franca or vehicular language across Nigeria. The language is sometimes referred to as Pijin or Vernacular, and it has over time become the speech form with the widest geographical coverage and largest amount of speakers in Nigeria besides English.
Coming into existence during the 17th and 18th centuries as a result of contact between Britons and Africans involved in the Atlantic slave trade, in the 2010s, a common orthography was developed for Pidgin which has been gaining significant popularity in giving the language a harmonized writing system.
It can be spoken as a pidgin, a creole, a dialect, or a decreolised acrolect by different speakers, who may switch between these forms depending on the social setting. Variations of what this article refers to as "Nigerian Pidgin" are also spoken across West and Central Africa, in countries such as Benin, Ghana, and Cameroon.
Status
Nigerian Pidgin is commonly used throughout the country and across ethnic groups, but it does not have official status.
In 2011, Google launched a search interface in Pidgin. In 2017, the BBC started BBC News Pidgin to provide services in Pidgin.
Varieties
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; The Sapele–Warri–Ughelli dialect spoken in the western Niger Delta area, which is also sometimes grouped together with the Benin City dialect that has influences from the Bini language due to their geographical closeness and common features; The Port Harcourt dialect that has a mix of influences and elements from the mixed ethnicities indigenous to Rivers State and the eastern Niger Delta; The Lagos or Western dialect which is highly influenced by Yoruba lexical borrowings/linguistic elements and calque translations; and the Onitsha or Eastern variety that draws some influences from Igbo.
According to Obiechina (1984), Nigerian Pidgin English can be subdivided into five dialectal areas or variants;
South West Pidgin – (Lagos, Ibadan, Etc.)
South Central Pidgin – (Abraka, Warri, Sapele, Agbor, Etc.)
Cross River Pidgin – (Calabar, Uyo, Ikot Ekpene, Obolo, Etc.)
Eastern Pidgin – (Port Harcourt, Kalabari, Onitsha, Owerri, Aba, Etc.)
Northern Pidgin – (Kaduna, Kano, Maiduguri, Jos Etc.)
Omamor (1992) however identifies only 4 varieties, viz: Lagos Pidgin, Port Harcourt Pidgin, Warri-Sapele-Benin Pidgin, and Northern Nigeria Pidgin.
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:
Yoruba – Ṣebi (pronounced 'sheh-bi') is often used at the start or end of an interrogative sentence or question, e.g. 'Ṣebi you dey come?' means "You are coming, right?"