NewStats: 3,262,171 , 8,176,310 topics. Date: Sunday, 01 June 2025 at 06:37 AM 3g3y6

I am curious.

Exempt West Africa. Do other regional Africa Countries understand pidgin English if spoken to them?

No they don't, but they'll have a clue. Same way Nigerians don't understand Jamaican Patois, but have a clue, especially due to the influence of reggae.

pansophist:
No they don't, but they'll have a clue. Same way Nigerians don't understand Jamaican Patois, but have a clue, especially due to the influence of reggae.

Patois is not pidgin, it is a Creole ( like a mother tongue)

Any body that speaks a standard variety of a language might understand it's pidgin because Most of the vocabulary of the pidgin version are from the parent stock

If u tell any English speaker that 'I no want problem'. They will understand what u mean, no matter the country

I am a Linguist

Hemeshemeheru:
I am curious.

Exempt West Africa. Do other regional Africa Countries understand pidgin English if spoken to them?

First of all Pidgin English is not a standard English, the way I speak my Pidgin English in the south, the northern finds it difficult to comprehen it a times talkless of a person from another Africa country.
Why we understand each other is because many of those Pidgin words/ slanges are coin from English language.
I may not fully understand the Pidgin English a Ghanaian is speaking but because those words are structure in English I have clues of that he's talking about.
Try listen to those Africa counties that speak English as their first language, then listen to their Pidgin English, it's entirely different from the ones we speak in Nigeria.

Hemeshemeheru:
I am curious.

Exempt West Africa. Do other regional Africa Countries understand pidgin English if spoken to them?

most people in lagos cannot understand Port harcourt pidgin, why do you now think everyone in africa would Even ekiti or ondo yoruba those in ogun and lagos can’t understand all the words.

If not for internet and skit making have you heard abobi or woto woto before

illicit:


Patois is not pidgin, it is a Creole ( like a mother tongue)

Any body that speaks a standard variety of a language might understand it's pidgin because Most of the vocabulary of the pidgin version are from the parent stock

I am a Linguist

I disagree with you using Kenyans as an example, their little understanding of pidgin English is picked from their local TV stations regularly airing Nollywood movies for 15 years now. Many don't know beyond "oga" "fufu" and "wahala".

Zupay:


I disagree with you using Kenyans as an example, their little understanding of pidgin English is picked from their local TV stations regularly airing Nollywood movies for 15 years now. Many don't know beyond "oga" "fufu" and "wahala".

So if I tell an English speaking Kenyan that 'I no want problem'

They can't decipher what I mean?

ednut1:
most people in lagos cannot understand Port harcourt pidgin, why do you now think everyone in africa would Even ekiti or ondo yoruba those in ogun and lagos can’t understand all the words.

If not for internet and skit making have you heard abobi or woto woto before

Actually Ekiti Dialect of Yoruba is the plainest (uninfluenced) being because it's in hinterland, not corrupted from influences from neighbouring tribes

NOT REALLY...
They all have a different versions of their own and it varies vastly.

Because Nollywood is very big across Africa and the world, our movies has been a great influence to many African English countries and most of them now understand and copy to speak our version of pidgin English.

The closest country to Nigeria in of similarities in pidgin English is Liberia, Sierra Leone then Ghana.

Nope

I had a colleague from Soweto

E no sabi shingba!

Another dude from Zimbabwe

Nothing nothing...

We just dey sell them

.

Nope...




Pidgin English is the major creole language in West Africa English speaking nations. Even amongst the nations the language has so many variaties and differences. Pidgin is a mixture of a local language and foreign one, or at most 'twisted' foreign language.


So Nigerian Pidgin English is the most popular across the region and even the world due to our large export of arts and how far we travel.

They all have their own versions of pidgin English

Yes.

Their pidgin is different.

the basics may be the same but the accent and certain will be so different that if they hold a conversation with you in pidgin, you will need to be inferring the meanings of many words from the way they were used. Just like hausa in kano state and the same hausa in sokoto state. Or the yoruba in lagos and the one in ijebu, or the igbo in agbor and that in Anambra.

They would listen extra hard to each other before understand themselves

I don't think so

Nope

Nope, Am sure of Botswana and Ethiopia.

Pidgin is common in West Africa

illicit:


Patois is not pidgin, it is a Creole ( like a mother tongue)

Any body that speaks a standard variety of a language might understand it's pidgin because Most of the vocabulary of the pidgin version are from th :oe parent stock
I am aw Linguist

Nigeria's pidgin english is also a Creole.

illicit:


Nigerian pidgin English is a creole?

I will like you to enlighten me on this pls

BoldBrainz:


This is false.

Nigerian pidgin is an English-based creole.

...DYOR as a linguistic @illicit

Wittyness.

They are have pidgin English but different versions

I have heard the ones spoken in Ghana and Sierra Leone and I know it's different from the one in Nigeria

Even here in Nigeria different regions have their own versions of pidgin English, for instance Wafi which is spoken in Delta State is different from the one spoken here in Lagos

D

illicit:


So if I tell an English speaking Kenyan that 'I no want problem'

They can't decipher what I mean?

Many won't, except those conversant with Afrosinema (Nollywood) which is daily aired on their local stations or regularly listen to Nigerian music. I lived and attended University there, I know how often I had to explain the pidgin English I spoke to them.

My near confrontation with stone the dreaded cultist. My meeting with my roommate who hilariously brings livestock to last him for the semester. Chris my friend who shows up every time I finish cooking a meal. My bitter experience with a Futo babe. My humiliating encounter with a security man. Read all this and more in Futo na War(my experience in university).
Link in signature (delete the spaces)

Every nation has its own pidgin version, like Nigeria's version of pidgin, English is mixed with local languages and the Yoruba language takes the lion's share of the mixed language that is made up of the Nigeria pidgin.

illicit:


Patois is not pidgin, it is a Creole ( like a mother tongue)

Any body that speaks a standard variety of a language might understand it's pidgin because Most of the vocabulary of the pidgin version are from the parent stock

I am a Linguist

yea I guess that's why I am that I am plenty for ur explanation 😉

No, they don't.

To some extent.

Cameroon, Ghana seems to have a ear for Pidgin..

They don't, most African countries including Ghana learn little pidgin English from watching Nigerian movies and music.

wittywriter:

Nigeria's pidgin english is also a Creole.






Wittyness.

Nigerian pidgin English is a creole?

I will like you to enlighten me on this pls

Reading..