Editor’s note: Clementine Wallop, Naij.com’s new contributor, pens her first piece for us — offering a unique insight of a British woman living as an expatriate in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. Have you ever wondered how Nigerian Pidgin English is perceived by foreigners trying to learn and successfully use it? Says Clementine: “I really ought to be doing better, but my pidgin is still poor. Sorry o!”
Here for over a year, give or take trips home for visa wahala, I should be well beyond the occasional ‘o’ or ‘abi’. I have my ‘how you dey’ down, but if you reply to me in pidgin I’d come back at you in English English, showing me up good and proper, as we would say. Being able to get beyond a hello is the best test of how you’re doing getting going with a new language, and it’s a test I’m failing badly.
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It’s not a lack of love that explains the struggle. I have long been a fan of twists and different takes on English. Standard English is not something I see as some ideal. If you even believe in such a thing, Standard English is English at its least fun, least local and least amusing. I was so keen to be good at Nigerian pidgin, and I am jealous when I queue at the ice cream shop behind teenagers brought up with English, Nigerian English and pidgin and able to switch bang-bang-bang between the three.
There are a couple of things getting in the way. The first is that many oyinbos feel shy when it comes to taking a language they know well and changing its rules or binning off the rules altogether, as with some other pidgins. People tell me they don’t want to sound like they’re taking the mickey when they try out pidgin (this is why we so often sound so awkward).
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The second problem I have is that my mind and mouth already speak pidgin, but it’s not from Nigeria, it’s from Singapore.
I lived in Singapore for three years. Want to grab a cab or order a bowl of noodles? Your Singlish will get you somewhere faster or get you your supper sooner than your English would by a million miles. My Singlish, while rusty, still rules, even though what I hear every day and all around is Nigerian pidgin.
My ‘how far’ is still more of a ‘so how ah?’ my ‘o’ more of a ‘lah’, my ‘abeg’ more ‘aiyoh’ or ‘alamak’ (a favourite of mine). There’s some overlap. ‘Small small’ remains ‘small small’, but the accent is completely different, the rhythms something else, the cultural winks and nods miles apart and the languages mixed in with English are thousands of miles from Nigeria pidgin.
A cabbie I was chatting to the other day asked if I could speak to him in Singlish. I gave him a little bit, dropping in some Abuja place names as I did. He cracked out laughing and told me ‘that thing is not English’.
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If you put me back in Singapore this evening, I could still get myself a plate of char kway teow no trouble; if you dropped me on suya street in Calabar I might look a little foolish and end up a lot hungry, doing proper tourist style pointing and making an imaginary knife and fork (which no one ever used for suya, right?).
I could help myself by spending the day riding around in cabs or bartering in Wuse Market, but instead I just continue sounding downright weird to anyone who attempts a pidgin chat with me – that’ll be my Singaporean accent. I’ll keep trying, but in the meantime my pidgin is pretty sorry o
Clementine Wallop is a British writer and researcher. She has been happily living in Abuja since 2014.
The post Abuja Oyinbo: Why I Cannot Speak Nigerian Pidgin appeared first on Nigeria News today & Breaking news | Read on NAIJ.COM.