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I'm not even going to get into whether its a language or not debate, but that right now it isn't a written language can change rather quickly. In a way it reminds me what happened to Haitian Kreyol, although there are major differences between that and the Pidgin spoken in Nigeria. For most of its existence Kreyol wasn't written. I think it was in the 1980's, maybe earlier, that the written aspect began to emerge. Today, Kreyol is as much a spoke language as it is written, there's even a Kreyol alphabet. The same can happen with Pidgin.
Prospectheights covered a bit of it although he went too deeply as no one cares about the bigotry of low expectations in Africa. Africans act however they want and the opinions of Europeans is irrelevant to Pidgin English speakers.
My issue with it is that it simply isn't a real language outside of one region of Nigeria. Hence their is an estimated 5 million people that use it for daily use (Largely in the region my Dad is from, Warri/Port Harcourt and a bit in Lagos and Benin City) even though their's an estimated 75 million total speakers. My dad is one of the few people that knows zero Nigerian languages and as a result can only speak English and proper Warri-Pidgin English. BBC wrote the standardized version of Pidgin. Since it isn't a language in the western sense theirs no need for a standardization. It's a trade language, the people that speak it live in the most multicultural parts of Nigeria and too understand other groups rather than learning several languages, folks just learned pidgin to speak and trade with each other. It's similar to Hindi in that respect with India. My Grandma could speak Pidgin, her own language, as well as Yoruba and Igbo (she recently passed).
This video shows a lot of the context. Look at how his voice changes. When talking in his normal voice and with pidgin. I'm not anti-pidgin, but it's a very local and it has it's purpose. Even in Nigeria. Folks from Warri are popular not only because of their accent. as mentioned in this video, but because Warri people have a certain cadence to them reminiscent of New York City. They'll tell you how it is, and it's a rough place, even by Nigerian standards as the disparity there is massive do to it being a center of oil revenues. In fact Warri is so rough the Oil Industry sort of left to Port Harcourt. Similar to New Orleans and Houston. It's cultural impact on the country is massive just like New Orleans. In fact Warri is so popular people associate all of Nigeria with Pidgin English since it's a cultural phenomenon that has grown from there and grabbed a hold of the country's entertainment history. Their are a million musicians, comedians and movie stars from Warri or Delta State, and it's the 2nd or 3rd most popping city after Lagos and Port Harcourt from a cultural standpoint.
Here is in another city. In this city, it's less multicultural than Warri or Port Harcourt or Lagos, because this is the Yoruba heartland. Listen to how people speak. The either Speak English with a Yoruba/Nigerian accent, or speak Yoruba. Even if they do Speak pidgin they speak a pidgin that's very similar to English, it's at best an Accent.
Now that context is somewhat established, let me explain why it's racist. The BBC are taking a language from a country that doesn't teach the language partially because it's seen as lower class and much more significantly because their are a million regional variations and all of them are close to English except 1 (I know in other West African countries they have more extreme versions of Pidgin and those can be considered separate Languages). They then put articles in it, using a grammatical structure that they created (While their unspoken rules when speaking Pidgin, no one is going to correct you).
My question is who is their' target audience? To this day no one writes in pidgin. People who speak Pidgin are either illiterate or can write in English. I could see the need for Other Creole's but native Pidgin speakers basically don't exist, it's an urban accent, it didn't come out of rural isolation. It's one thing if a need is not being met and their are millions people who can read Pidgin English and can't read regular English, but that crossover simply doesn't exist. About the only space is for people who can Speak Pidgin English and Ijaw/Yoruba/Edo but not proper English. But then again if these people could read they would have learned proper English. As to even know written Yoruba or any other language in Nigeria you likely have to know English first.
On top of that do the lower class urbanites of Warri, Port Harcourt, Benin City and Ajegunle, Lagos who might have the most difficulty read the BBC?
Also I have an issue with them quoting people specifically, who almost certainly weren't speaking pidgin. If you quote someone and you rewrite what they actually said, to make it sound like they aren't speaking English it's insulting. Pidgin has it's place, and their are proper ways to Speak with a Nigerian accent but once you start discussing topics like this with pidgin it seems like a reading a written minstrel show.
Maybe it's just me but the irony in writing in something called Broken English, talking about this topic just seems off.
Appreciate the insight you have provided in this thread. Very informative. I am not quite sure I would go as far as to call the article racist but there may be "something" there.
I'm not even going to get into whether its a language or not debate, but that right now it isn't a written language can change rather quickly. In a way it reminds me what happened to Haitian Kreyol, although there are major differences between that and the Pidgin spoken in Nigeria. For most of its existence Kreyol wasn't written. I think it was in the 1980's, maybe earlier, that the written aspect began to emerge. Today, Kreyol is as much a spoke language as it is written, there's even a Kreyol alphabet. The same can happen with Pidgin.
It would be hard to standardize. Delta Pidgin, Yoruba Pidgin, Igbo Pidgin and Hausa Pidgin have distinct loanwords, this is true with all regional varieties of Pidgin, unlike Haiti or Jamaica were Pidgin isn't inhibited by speakers of other languages. You can tell someone's location from the loanwords used. Also, like I said. Only The Warri one isn't borderline standard English. Most Pidgin is more like a heavy Southern Accent, than a true Creole language. Igbo pidgin is heavily accented English with words like "unna" interjected. Yoruba is the same with words like "sabi", although sabi is more common than just Yoruba pidgin. Hausa apparently use "ba" at the end of sentences but I've personally never heard a Hausa speak Pidgin as Pidgin is largely home to coastal Africa, and 100-300 km inland largely disappears. So you really can't standardized something that itself is based on the languages of who's trading. In an area were Delta peoples (Edo/Ijaw/Ibibio/Itsekiri etc.) and Yoruba meet, the loanwords used will reflect those areas. In a Place where Igbo and Delta meet, or Igbo and Middle Belt ethnicities meet, or Igbos and Yorubas etcetera. These languages are easily understood, but the issue is that theirs a "filler" word for a lot of the languages involved.
Appreciate the insight you have provided in this thread. Very informative. I am not quite sure I would go as far as to call the article racist but there may be "something" there.
Yeah, racist was probably to strong a word. The writers aren't the issue, but the fact that BBC feels the need to standardize something that doesn't need standardization. The fact that way to many words are just accented english words, the fact that the market from my perspective is barely there. Even the concept of Primary Speakers of pidgin is very weak (although possible) based on my experience.
I thought it was strange to see Pidgin written out in the BBC as it is a spoken language, I would assume if one is inclined to
read the BBC, that person would have a normal command of Standard English anyway. I do remember seeing a drop-down
menu of language translations, many with obscure languages and dialects on the BBC. As an AA, I picked up 60% of Sierra
Leone Krio in college from roommates from that country. They in turn spoke Pidgin with the Eastern Nigerians and a guy from
Cameroon who also spoke French. The one guy from Ghana in our social circle always spoke Standard English even though
he understood Pidgin. Of course, we all knew Standard English.
However, I had one Nigerian friend (Yoruba) who did not like Pidgin, he felt it made Africans look incompetent in speaking
another man's language and that he would only speak to me in Standard English or Yoruba and would rather teach me
Yoruba than talk Pidgin.
That reminded me of a Jamaican friend who stated to me she was not allowed to speak Patois at home as it was considered
bad English. One strange coincidence about Krio was that growing up, I lived in a small town where the AA neighborhood was
made up of many rural Southern migrants, older people. So in the summer, late July, early August a truck would come around
and a Lebanese street hawker would holler out his fruits.
The people would hear him and say "Here come Abadoo" including my family members. So during my whole life up to that point, I thought the man's name was "Abadoo". I get to college, one friend from SL tells me that in Krio, people say "Abadoo"
instead of Abdul. I said "WHAT?" I related him this story and realized the man's name was probably Abdul all along.
So I figured there might be some connection between rural Southern dialect, Gullah/Geechee and Krio.
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