Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English power

Do this piece mean that this Radio Wazobia is the first to utilize Nigerian Pidgin English, or simply the first to broadcast its materials entirely in Pidgin?   Else ever prior to this Radio WAzobiae, they were many news items in Nigerian Pidgin English or Nigerian English on different Nigerian radio stations. For instance the popular radio drama "Waka about"  in the 1970s through the 1980s on national radio was in Nigerian Pidgin English.    Also different Radio Stations like the Port-Harcourt Garden City FM had long broadcast its news and other items in Nigerian Pidgin English, especially its News in Special English.     The (old) Anambra State Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio also had many productions and broadcast items in Nigerian Pidgin English. The same was true of the Bendel Broadcasting Station Radio and Television news and other broadcasts.   Among private ventures, Minaj (Menaj ???) FM Radio broadcasting I think from Obosi, Onitsha was also versatile in utilizing Pidign English for news, ads, and other productions like drama.   Even more significant was the use by the Radio Democracy (later Radio Kudirat) associated with the Nigerian exilic opposition during the Abacha dictatorship, whose many programs were broadcast in Nigerian Pidgin English. I guess, this is one subjective review, many others can identify other Nigerian radio and television stations that utilized Nigerian Pidgin English vastly and broadly for their media outreach.   Having sketched the Nigeria media long utilization and versatility of Nigerian Pidgin English in radio broadcast and theatric production, it is a good thing that there is an heightened efforts to harness its potentials. In fact, I am looking forward to seeing certain literary productions like the Christian bible, Moslem Koran (Quran) and other popular literatures translated in Nigerian Pidgin English. In some sense, the Cameroonians are farther in this perspective, as I know that the bible and other Christian prayers have long been rendered in pidgin Cameroonian style.    Even further than Nigeria, one would look to joint venture across the western African region in broadening the sphere of pidgin formalized diffusive acceptance and utilization in literature and other genres as formal speech and literary devices.   Back in the days, the Pidgin English of Papa Ajasco in Ikebe (Superstar) magazine always offered spices for eliminating dullness.  Hence, it is not impossible altogether, as some forms of this language have been literarily and media (albeit yellow, junk journalism mainly) and also partially or episodically on radio and television.   It is now time to make this language more robust and functionally relevant as a vehicle of acute thought expression, communication, science and technology, entertainment, and laudable utilization.  For in spite of its vast usage, there have always been a pejorative tag assigned to this unique and fun language. --- On Sat, 11/13/10, Hetty ter Haar <oldavenue@googlemail.com> wrote: From: Hetty ter Haar <oldavenue@googlemail.com> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English power To: "USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> Date: Saturday, November 13, 2010, 5:23 PM Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English power Work has started to study and standardise a language spoken by millions but denied official status, raising hopes for education and communication across West Africa Yinka Ibukun Friday November 12 2010 Guardian Weekly http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/09/nigeria-pidgin-learning-english-ibukun The traffic gridlock of Nigeria's main city Lagos means that Albanus Olekaibe, a 44-year-old contract driver, spends more of his day listening to radio presenters than to anyone else. He has been following reports of the latest bribery scandal to beset the World Cup football authorities and he can speak knowledgeably on the midterm elections in the US. But the commentary on current affairs that spills from this big, cheerful man would be incomprehensible to the average English speaker. Olekaibe uses familiar English words but strings them together in a unique way, interspersed with phrases from Nigeria's 500 other languages. Like some 50 million Nigerians he speaks Nigerian Pidgin English. His source of news is Wazobia FM [http://www.wazobiafm.com" title="], the first radio station in Nigeria to broadcast in Pidgin and registering huge audiences as a result. The station's newsreaders report on the impending monsoon in south-east Asia: "Dem dey run comot for dem house" (People are fleeing their homes). Long considered the language of the uneducated, Nigerian Pidgin English, with its oscillating tones and playful imagery, is now spoken by Nigerians of every age, social class and regional origin. In a country with wide disparity in education provision, Pidgin operates as a de facto lingua franca, a bridge between social classes, ethnicities and educational levels. Public announcements and information campaigns are often made in Pidgin, which has a wider reach than standard English, the official language of this former British colony. But while Nigerian Pidgin first emerged nearly 600 years ago, when trade with Europe was first established in the Niger Delta, and is now estimated to be used by 50 million people, and with variants spoken in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the language still has no standard rules for spelling, grammar or an official dictionary. As a Nigerian linguist once put it, "Na like pikin we no get papa, we no get mama" (It is like a child without a father or mother). Everyone uses Pidgin to serve their purpose, but no one looks out for it. That is what the Naija Languej Akademi is seeking to change by creating the first reference guide for Pidgin English, which will include an alphabet, a comprehensive dictionary, a standard guide to orthography and an authoritative history of the language. "The fact that it is a very recent development makes the language very interesting from an intellectual point of view," said Bernard Caron, a French linguist and secretary of the Akademi, a project set up last year with French government funding to promote research in the social sciences and the humanities, and enhance collaborative work between scholars in France and west Africa. Caron and his mostly Nigerian colleagues prefer to call the language Naija Languej, arguing that the term Pidgin or the alternative "broken English" are either inaccurate or derogatory. Pidgin is a definition applied to simplistic languages that are prone to die out. If, however, they evolve and acquire native speakers, they are categorised as creole languages. The Naija Languej Akademi argues that Nigerian Pidgin has acquired native speakers in the southern Niger Delta, from where it developed as a means of communication between local people and European traders. The interest in Pidgin is not only intellectual but also political. Because similar forms of Pidgin are shared across west Africa's English-speaking countries, many believe it could evolve from a national lingua franca into a regional one. The value of Pidgin has also been brought into focus by falling attainment in standard English. This year's NECO exam, one of two tests used to administer secondary school leaving certificates, revealed that only 20% of the 1.1 million candidates passed the English-language paper, fuelling a national debate over the dire state of education standards. "We even have 14-year-old children in our programme who cannot read," said Patrick Oragwu, co-ordinator of Oasis, a not-for profit project establishing libraries in government funded schools to encourage reading. "The main problem is that the Nigerian education system has failed. All the languages students are exposed to [have an impact on] their ability to read and understand properly. Not just Pidgin, but all languages affect them." Urban Nigerians are used to switching from one language to the next, but without good grounding in basic grammar and orthography of either English or their mother tongue, code switching becomes more difficult. Addressing the needs of multilingual societies was first highlighted 40 years ago when Unesco published a study showing that primary-school- aged children learn better when taught in their mother tongue. Mother- tongue education was championed in Nigeria in the 1970s by the pioneering education minister Babs Fafunwa, who died aged 87 last month, but the policy was never implemented. Dr Christine Ofulue, a linguist and member of the Akademi, explains that teaching mother tongues in schools, including Pidgin, will improve students' English. "We call it contrastive linguistics," she said. "It's the opposite to saying: 'Let's not teach so we don't confuse them.' When you do that you do confuse them and you can use the same argument for other languages." But before any strong case can be made for teaching Pidgin as a language in schools, spelling first needs to be standardised. And so members of the Naija Languej Akademi have tasked themselves with answering  questions such as where to put accents to indicate vowel sounds: far-reaching decisions that few 21st-century linguists get to make. Outside the world of academics and policymakers, Nigerian Pidgin English is simply the way millions of Nigerians communicate. Olekaibe's dial is permanently turned to Wazobia FM, overlooking about 20 other stations on offer. Lately though he has been missing the familiar voices that make Lagos traffic more bearable because his stereo is broken. "My radio don bad, a just de wait make dem fix am!" Due to a production error, the original version of this article stated that Pidgin originated in Nigeria 60 years ago, this has been corrected to 600 years guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.    For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue    For previous archives, visit  http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html    To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-         unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

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