Apologies for any inconveniences from reposting
The Promise of Nigerian Pidgin English
as a
Unifying Language across Disciplines and Nigerian Ethnicities
The Achievement of Zazugist
Toyin Adepoju
The Shock of the New
One goes through certain experiences that shiver one's bones on account of their unsettling of one's expectations of the universe. Some create shock in administering a sudden heightening of awareness of creative possibilities. I went through one such experience at the University of Kent in January 2003, when, just arrived from Nigeria to do an MA in Comparative Literature, a very young girl who looked to so scruffy I thought she wanted to ask me for money called to me to ask something. She actually wanted directions and I asked her what she did. She told me she was a student, in comparative literature, as I was, and in the same university, and on a PhD program.
At that point, I vanished from the earth. I ceased to exist for the moments it took me to regain awareness of myself. From that moment forth, I was no more the same person, so great was the difference between the revelation I had experienced through my encounter with this girl and my previous experience of graduate study, in which people aged on graduate programs. It was left to the girl to console me by explaining her view that my studying at an age significantly older than hers would imply a greater ability to learn than herself on account of greater maturity. It is as I write this I appreciate the level of maturity the girl showed in demonstrating such sensitivity to my condition.
Zazugist and the Elevation of Nigerian Pidgin English
I had a related experience yesterday evening, on clicking on a link : http://www.zazugist.com, in a post on the Nigerian literary group Ederi, and saw that the link leads to a beautiful website Zazugist, by Victor Ehikhamenor, supported by other writers such as Ben Figo Ezeamalu, Ikhide Ikheloa and Ruona Agbroko, that, in graphic art, pictures and words, reports Nigerian national and some international news purely in a variant of Nigerian pidgin English.
What is the significance of this achievement?
Nigerian Pidgin English and the Question of an Indigneously
Created National Language
It evokes the question of the possibility of a national language created in Nigeria by Nigerians that bears the imprint of Nigerian history. It is also valuable in relation to the development of English as a
global language, emerging in various forms across time and space.
It takes us closer to the issue of the possibility of a national language that Nigerians identify with at a more intimate, visceral , closer to the bones level than Standard English. As more and more Nigerian children do not develop fluency in Nigerian languages, the door widens for the broader use of pidgin English as a medium of informal communication alongside the use of Standard English as an official means of communication in schools and public fora. The Nigerian President's wife drew consistent attention at the last election round in campaigning in pidgin English, made more colourful by infelicities in some of her expressions.
The Example of the Latin Pidgin now known as Italian
I wonder if any variant of Nigerian pidgin English will achieve the status that the Italian variant of Latin pidgin achieved in the centuries after the destruction of the ethnic language by the Latin of the Roman colonialists, with the Divina Commedia of Dante Alighieri likely to be the first literary work in that pidgin. Dante thereby gave practical muscle to Dante's championing of use of the new pidgin in formal communication, in his De Vulgaria Eloquentia, written in Latin, which was then the language of scholarship and formal communication in Europe.
The Divinia Commedia has been recognised for centuries as one of the greatest works of world literature, translated into numerous languages, and in English translation, which I am familiar with, its sublime poetry remains evident, even in a reduced form. The adjective 'Dantesque' has passed into English to evoke the phantasmagoric character of the Inferno, the first book in the Commedia. The Italian language has moved on beyond the impetus Dante gave it, and many Italians are likely to find his early Italian difficult or impossible to read, I suspect.
Earlier Efforts at Elevating Nigerian Pidgin English
Earlier efforts to use Nigerian pidgin English as a means of communication in written text include the poetry of Aig-Imokhuede and the comic book Ikebe Super, sadly discontinued. Another example is Sozaboy : A Novel in Rotten English by Ken Saro Wiwa.
Perhaps the most globally visible medium of Nigerian art, the Nigerian home video industry, does not use pidgin as a central means of communication, to the best of my knowledge, preferring to focus on Standard English, although in a Nigerian accent and a Nigerian idiom evident in its style, it seems.. I seem to remember the news being read on a TV station in Benin City in pidgin English after the reading of the news in Standard English and a native language.
The significance of Nigerian pidgin English is also challenged by the linguistic and other cultural differences between Northern and Southern Nigeria. Even though I am not well informed on the subject, I dont expect pidgin English is spoken significantly in Northern Nigeria.
The Poetic Force of Nigerian Pidgin English on Zazugist and
the Challenges of Translation
As it is, the rendition of Nigerian pidgin English on Zazugist demonstrates elements of the distinctive poetic power of the language that make it clear what makes it difficult to evoke the poetic force of one language in another language.How does one translate the following to Standard English for example-
'Mama Charlie talk say... her belle sweet as she dey greet oga Jonathan and we sef Nigerian people.'
One can provide a note explaining 'Mama Charlie' is the current queen of England whose son is Prince Charles, her being referred to here by her son's name on account of the tendency among some Nigerian ethnicities to name women by their children's name in attitudes derived from the pre-eminent significance of motherhood in Nigerian cultures. But, how does one translate " her belle sweet"? Is it enough to translate it literally as 'her stomach or belly is sweet', indicating a delightful sense of satisfaction evoked in terms of the sweetening of the stomach, the destination of the delicious offerings made to it in the name of food? How does one retain the concise force of the original?
In a report on President Jonathan's bid to extend the tenure of the President and lawmakers beyond beyond the constitutionally decreed terms, the following point is made:
'the paper say oga Jonathan wan use tortoise sense settle the lawmaker dem'
How does one translate 'tortoise sense' in the context of seeing the President as wanting to bribe the lawmakers to make his bid pass their scrutiny, in which 'sense' means intelligence and the tortoise, in an image drawn from his role as a trickster figure in various Nigerian folklores, represents
cunning, 'tortoise 'sense', therefore, meaning the cunning intelligence of a tortoise?
or
'The last runs wey dey inside the matter be say if oga Jonathan prayer jam answer'
I really like this one, depicting the possibility of the fulfilment of President Jonathan's wish/prayer for tenure elongation as a collision between prayer and answer, between wish and fulfilment, in which 'jam,' means to collide.
Expanding Manifestations of English as a Global Language
The effort of Zazugist to render news in Nigerian pidgin English is an achievement of national significance, and valuable in relation to the development of English as a global language.
Zazugist has a dictionary, a resource that can be used to expand literacy in an already living, widespread, organically developing language.
To what degree can Nigerian pidgin English be developed to communicate in relation to spheres of experience beyond the everyday culture in terms of which it has been developed? Can it serve in the more rarefied zones of philosophy, medicine and mathematics, among others? My effort at presenting an aspect of the thought of the Nigerian thinker Abiola Irele, "Bush Wen Become World: Wetin Abiola Irele Write About how Yoruba Tink World be: A Transposition into Nigerian Pidgin English of Abiola Irele on Classical Yoruba Cosmology" is an effort in this direction.
The scope of the vocabulary of Nigerian pidgin English, the naturalness of the development of this vocabulary from its more prosaic, more basic origins and the readiness of its users to employ it in an increasingly broadening range of activities will be central as to the ultimate history of the language.
It is now clear, though, that Nigerian pidgin English is a distinct language, with a significant demographic representation across the Southern part of the country, at least, with perhaps the heaviest concentration of users and innovation in its use being in the Edo/Delate states axis, but its use as being significantly national.
Also posted at
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