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Nigerian Pidgin

pidgin

Nigerian Pidgin is an Indo-European language spoken in Nigeria, by about 47.5 million people.

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Nigerian Pidgin · 9.7°N 4.2°E

Nigerian Pidgin or NPE, also known simply as Pidgin, Broken or as Naijá in scholarship, is an English-based creole language spoken as a lingua franca or vehicular language across Nigeria coming into existence during the 17th and 18th centuries as a result of contact between colonizing Britons and African slavers involved in the Atlantic slave trade. 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.

It is the largest of the various varieties/registers of West African/Guinea coast creoles and can be spoken as 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.

From Wikipedia · Nigerian Pidgin · CC BY-SA 4.0

Written down

Everi human being, naim dem born free and dem de equal for dignity and di rights wey we get, as human beings, God come give us beta sense wey we de take tink well, well and beta mind, sake for dis, we must to treat each other like broda and sister.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR in Unicode).

Words in Nigerian Pidgin

MeaningWordRomanization
childpikin
womanwuman
bonebón
treestik
dogdọg
birdbẹd
snakesnek
onewọ́n
twotu
threetre
fourfọ́
fivefáív
Imi
whohú
whatwetin
eatchop
diekpeme
househaus
moneymọní

Most similar languages

Vocabulary

Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.

Nearby languages

Elsewhere

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Glottolog · nige1257 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · pcm