BBC launches new service in Pidgin English BBC has launched a digital service in Pidgin English, catering to people in West Africa who speak the unofficial language. […]

BBC has launched a digital service in Pidgin English, catering to people in West Africa who speak the unofficial language.

Pidgin A version of English with a simplified grammar and influence from Portuguese and West African languages. Used as a lingua franca in linguistically diverse Nigeria and elsewhere. The i newsletter cut through the noise Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

The World Service’s site, part of its biggest expansion since the 1940s, is up and running, combining Nigerian political news (“Nigeria: How Rats chase President Buhari from office”) with stories on football (“Wey our money? Barca dey ask Neymar”) and, of course, Donald Trump (“5 Ways You Fit Get Donald Trump To Sack You”).

The exact number of people who speak Pidgin is unclear, but up to 75 million people in Nigeria alone are said to be proficient, with speakers of dozens of mother tongues in the country using it as a lingua franca.

Cuts across borders

Up to 5 million people in Nigeria use it as a first language, with more speakers in Ghana, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and elsewhere.

“It is a language that really unites people and cuts across all sorts of barriers – ethnic, regional and socio-economic,” says Bilkisu Labaran, editorial lead of the new BBC service.

Learn Pidgin “Wétin dey?” – How are you? “Wahala” – Trouble “I wan chop” – I want to eat “Your story get k-leg” – your story is suspicious

It is not an official language in Nigeria and has no current written standard, as it is mostly used in informal contexts. But the World Service has viewed this as a challenge, rather than an obstacle.

“Because it mixes indigenous languages, it differs from country to country. It’s a very fluid language,” World Service broadcaster Peter Okwoche told Radio 4 Today.

“There is no standardised Pidgin, but there is a Pidgin that almost everybody that speaks the language can understand, and that’s what we’re going to concentrate on.”

Introducing new nuance

“As we go along, we’ll try to introduce new words into the language, new nuance into the language – and hopefully people will pick it up from the BBC.”

In written form, much of BBC Pidgin is intelligible to speakers of British English, but the spoken form – which can be heard on the site – may provide more difficulties.

Other languages set for new services include Igbo and Yoruba in Nigeria, Amharic, Oromo and Tigrinya in the Horn of Africa, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Telugu in India, and Korean.