They were different kinds of pidgin languages that emerged along the west African littorals and diffused due to commerce. Some of these pidginized languages had their superstrates in Portuguese, probably among the early ones hence giving origin to words like "pickin"(pikini, pikin, etc), "palaver" (from palabra, palava referencing conversations especially trade haggling, hence it taking the nuance of trouble later on in Nigeria's English Pidgin), and many such others. Some forms of Dutch pidgin forms also probably evolved around the coast, and in Ghana, Gambia, and those places where the Dutch replaced the Portguese, and English Pidgin forms came much later. What I am not clear is whether the Danes in West Africa, did have such enduring impact to have generated any pidginized language form. I am of the impression that the quick transitional successions of power and commercial controls, as it unfolded especially in West Africa, did not give the Danes enough time to stamp their linguistic influence. In any case, there are as many pidgin languages and many Englishes in Western and Central Africa- stretching from the Senegal/Gambia area to Gabon. What would be interesting for historical linguistics is to find out whether the area of the Soyo or Mani-Congo, and those places that first had encountered the Portuguese, then the Dutch, Danes, French, and English- at times in revolving successions- still have subsisting pidgin forms within their current functional languages of communications- or at the very least to figure what words from that era beginning in the 15th Century are extant within their current linguistic repertoire. Most of my past efforts along pidgin forms dealt mainly with the West African forms, and those associated with English. But I do realize there are pidginized forms of the other Eurocentric languages that Africans adopted, due to colonialism. The area of Pidgin/Creole research remain a very vast area for ongoing exploration. However, the diffusive influence of the Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) for instance is a relatively recent phenomenon, that spread rapidly in the 1980s and afterwards. In fact, while going through elementary school, in my neck of the wood, it was English or the vernacular language that were functional languages; with the vernacular languages often derided, forcing one to adopt the taught British/Nigerian standard English. Visiting towns, especially in 1980 when I came to Makurdi to spend vacation with my mother, hearing the pidgin English made me laughed, because it was not supposed to be for the educated and civilized. On the other hand, I made friendship with Lade, an avid pidgin speaker who laughed and mocked my standard English. I quickly became a pidgin-English convert- unfortunately not to the pleasure of my parents. In some respect, I am glad I did. But within few years afterwards, this pidgin current had infiltrated my neck of the wood, and with real funny broken ones, like the one the driver of the school where my dad was Principal always speak- "Na me, na you dey come." "Na him sai na me bring the bus key." We used to crack up, because we felt then that he lacked competent facility of what we considered as correct pidgin enough. But for sure, we always were able to decode and discern what that driver always said, since when a communicative impasse develops, he resorts to our native Igala language. Yet, what I now wonder, is was his the typical broken English or was it pidgin? Further, at what point does the broken English language though using vocabulary peculiar to pidgin forms -dem, na, dey- evolve into acceptable and competent pidgin English(es)? Whose pidgin is the normative or appropriately correct one? While, as Moses Ochonu, note most Nigerians would allude to the Niger Delta (Warri, Waffi [not like wi-fi but more like waffle]) form as the "original" or "purist," in reality the Nigerian English form is dynamically shifting and changing its lexicons, and at times structural forms. Recently, I learnt that "pepper" means something different from what I would have imagined it to mean, denoting "money." As these transformations occur does the identity of the pidgin English remain the same, as pidgin English(es) or simply another form of "Nigerian," "Ghanaian," "Cameroonian," "Liberian" or "Sierra Leonean" evolved languages? In fact, the major transformation in the pidgin forms pertains to lexical infusion from the indigenous African language speech or lexicons. This process of heightened re-lexification, through such cooptation of new and multiple lexemes from the indigenous languages repertoire radically transform and absorb the aboriginal superstrate- English, French, Portuguese, etc- and linguistic contents. Where and when this occurs massively, I denote "pletholexification" or "plenalexification" as occuring, indicative of the incorporation and integration of varying [pletho-for many; plena-for full'] lexemes fom diverse African languages- Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, etc into the pidgin linguistic repertoire. At this point, then it actually beckons upon taking another critical look at the language in reevaluating its identity. As these shifts occur can we rightfully assert that the Nigerian or other pidgin Englishes (of course, within Nigerian pidgin English variations exists) continue to be appropriately assumed as an English based language, or simply another language like Nigerian Speak Language? Thus, can we alsoenvisage the Nigerian Pidgin English as evolving into Nigerian Pidgin Yoruba? Or can we realistically even still speak of it as pidgin? Is this deformed or enhance pidgin? Or, is it neither Pidgin nor English? Shifts within pidgin phenomena can be both highly selective and equally very integrally infectious in its widespread nature. At times, there is a regional dimension to its selectivity, which too seems to quickly yield to diffusive tendencies, hence stamping the language changes swiftly in shaping it beyond the regional ambience or speech communities where these shifts/alterations/insertions were first introduced. For instance, the following words are no longer restricted to their regional domains within Nigeria; the Igbo biko for please, the Yoruba- "Se" (almost equating so,), the Hausa- "Ya Mutu" for dead, or such expressions as "E don die like Dodo" (Dodo is Yoruba for Plantain). The factors for the rapid diffusion of these variant or additional regional 'integrals' tend to be mainly due to travel, the mass media, education, intermarriages, commerce, military and government postings, interethnic residential interactions. English based pidgins are not the only ones that are affected by such changes, as the anthropologist, Johannes Fabian, equally indicates of Katanga Swahili. Significantly, it is at what point that we can conveniently mark these referential changes as constituting a clear cut-off point, indicative of a full and independent language formation on its own merit and measured according to its rules and dynamics, that accentuate scholarly fascination regarding these pidginized language forms. Of course, we all know that many Europeanized forms followed similar processes. But is what is true for these Europeanized languages in the past necessarily going to hold true and constant in our perceptive and scholarly understanding of the statuses of our kinds of non-western and contemporary pidgin forms? In fact, having said that, I think it is highly intriguing and ironical, all at once, that it is a Radio Station with the name "WAZOBIA" that is asserted as avidly promoting the Nigerian Pidgin English(es), rather than any form of "Yoruhausigbo" - Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo in their WAZOBIAc combinations. --- On Sat, 11/13/10, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:
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