The Role Of Nigerian Pidgin English

Project and Seminar Material for English Language

Abstract

The Nigerian Pidgin English is a type of English used and understood by so many people in Nigeria regardless of ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic background. Even though some people now use it in social communication, pidgin English is not only used in places like market local community and so on, but also Nigerian secondary and tertiary institutions’ students now use pidgin English to communicate with each other. The continued use of Pidgin English in Nigeria made the number of interest of its speakers to continue to expand and this encouraged the growth of Nigerian pidgin. Therefore, this project attempts to study the role of Nigerian Pidgin English especially in Army Day Secondary School, Sokoto.

Chapter One

1.0 Introduction

Nigeria is a country with a background of about four hundred indigenous languages, but there are three major languages – Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba existing in three major zones of North, East and South respectively. Despite this fact, Nigerian pidgin is used in different parts of the country and it has become a common language for many. It is spoken mainly in the Southern and Eastern states like Rivers, Lagos, Delta, Edo and Cross Rivers. Merchese and Schknal (1990) stated after a major evaluation in the Delta area of Nigeria that: “… in areas around Warri and Sapele, Nigeria pidgin is more of creole.” Creole is a mixture of European language with a local language and is spoken as a first language.