REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 BRIEF HISTORY OF NIGERIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH
The Portuguese were the first Europeans who traded in pepper and slaves from the Nigerian coastal area. They first arrived in Benin (city) at the end of the 15th century. From the mid 16th century, the British took over as major trading partners. With the abolition of the slave trade at the beginning of the 19th Century, British colonial interests shifted to agricultural production for exportation to Europe. In 1842 and 1846 the first missionary stations were established in Badagry (near Lagos in the Southwest) and Calabar (in the Southeast) respectively. The missionaries were mainly interested in spreading Christianity among the African pagans. In the schools they established in the Southern part of Nigeria (they were not allowed to settle in the Islamic North of the country) they also taught agriculture, crafts and hygiene. In order to easily reach the population, the language of instruction was usually the mother tongue of the natives. But the Africans refused to send their children to school because they needed them to work in the house and on the farms. Consequently, the missionaries paid compensation to the parents. All the same, the first generation of students was made up mainly of children of slaves who the village communities thought they would not miss much. The mass withdrawal of English colonial officers just before and after Nigeria’s independence down turn in the Nigeria economy and the disappearance of the middle class with the attendant breakdown in social and family values.
The British colonial government increasingly felt the need for Africans who were literate in English and would serve British colonial and trade interests (for instance as teachers, interpreters and clerks for local native courts and the trading companies). Therefore, missionary stations were ordered in the 1880s to teach English in their schools. In the long run, however, the missionary schools were unable to meet the demands for educated Nigerians, and the colonial government began to establish state schools from the turn of the century. The first state school was in fact founded as a result of pressure from Muslims in Lagos in 1899 who had no access to missionary schools and felt they were at a disadvantage. Despite all these efforts, communication was indeed difficult between the Nigerians and the colonial masters thus a means of easy communication had to be devised which was a simplified way of structuring and speaking English. The simplification could be seen in all the levels of a new contact language that emerged (Pidgin). The emergence of churches and the use of pidgin English to evangelise people.
2.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF NIGERIAN PIDGIN
The new contact language is a simplified language in the areas of Lexis, Phonology and Grammar
2.2.1 NIGERIAN PIDGIN LEXIS
Pidgin draws its lexical items from the dominant language namely English, while others are drawn from the indigenous languages. For examples,
a) Yoruba: oyibo – ‘white man’,
wahala - trouble
b) Portuguese: pikin – ‘child’
palava – ‘trouble’
sabi – ‘to know’
c) Hausa: wayo – ‘tricks’
Secondly, there is extensive use of reduplication in its lexis. This is partly to identify meaning and partly to avoid confusion which could result from phonological similarity. Examples: katakata (confusion, chaos), wakawaka (walk or wander perpetually), toktok (talk, gossip).
In addition, Pidgin lexis is filled with Compound Words like ‘kresman’ – (crazy man), ‘switmaut’ – (flattery), ‘wochnait’ – (night watchman).
2.2.2 THE GROWTH OF NIGERIAN PIDGIN
The growth of Nigerian Pidgin from a rudimentary speech form which was strongly aided by gesture to an elaborate form is examined in some details by Elugbe and Omamor (1991). At first, it was used between the visiting English and their Nigerian hosts. Later, the Nigerians, who had no common language of their own, began to use this form among them. This had the effect of stabilising and expanding the language because it then had to cope with the expanding experiences of its Nigerian users. The continued use of the English in Nigeria made the number and interest of its speakers to continue to expand, and this encourages the growth of Nigerian Pidgin. The continual growth and use of Pidgin English challenges was a challenge and threat to the existence of English and this brought about the emergence of Standard English. This development was a logical consequence of two factors. In the first place, the English recognised that they could not do business in a language in that they could keep records, which they considered inferior and was unintelligible to English speakers newly arrived from Britain. Nigerian pidgin was thus relegated to situations involving only Nigerians, or the English and those Nigerians who could not speak or understand the standard variety of English. Secondly, schools were established and a standard variety of English was being taught. This variety became the language of trade and industry, missionary work and government. So important did this variety become that its possession became a passport to a good position in society, with its social and material benefits. The growth of English in Nigeria did not remove the usefulness of Nigerian Pidgin. Not everyone had access to a school and the process of acquiring English was decidedly longer and more tedious than that of ‘picking up’ Nigerian Pidgin. It remains a hallmark of Nigerian pidgin that its speakers use it with a lot of freedom and creativity. In the days of the colonial government, the missionaries were very influential and they used that influence to ensure that activities leading to the development of Nigerian languages were not banned. Adopting a mother-tongue approach to evangelism, they believed that the gospel was best delivered to potential converts in the language they understood best. Thus, they doubled as missionaries and linguists, studying the local languages, committing them to writing and attempting to translate the Bible, or parts of it, into these languages. There were also colonial administrators who doubled as civil servants and linguists. Thus, the colonial government had to grant some recognition to the ‘vernaculars’- as the indigenous languages were called. The recognition of the local languages did not extend to Nigerian pidgin. Even those who helped to sustain it by speaking it refused to recognised it, a situation that exists even today. One meets highly placed government officials who speak Nigerian Pidgin but do not believe it should be allocated a role in the language policy in Nigeria. It is therefore obvious that Nigeria Pidgin has survived and flourished by generally being readily useful and handy, thus filling a veritable communication vacuum in Nigeria.
2.3 THE BENEFITS OF NIGERIAN PIDGIN
Nigeria Pidgin has major benefits which are not exploited in language planning in Nigeria. Since the search for unity is a primary concern of government, one would have thought that Nigerian pidgin would be brought into the planning process. It is a major asset, for example, it shares with English the unique feature of being the only ethnically neutral language in Nigeria.
Another of its assets is that it is a national language. As Elugbe (1990: 10) has pointed out, a language may be national by being spoken all over Nigeria, by being indigenous and by being declared ‘national’. Nigerian Pidgin is national because it meets two of these requirements:
1) It is geographically spread all over Nigeria and spoken by Nigerians of different ethnic origins.
2) It is indigenous to Nigeria because it originated, is sustained and is expanding here in Nigeria.
It should be added that Standard English meets only the condition of being spoken all over Nigeria. In fact, only Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, which are the major indigenous languages, meet all three criteria in the definition of ‘national’ in Nigeria. In education, Nigeria has a mother-tongue policy which requires that every child be taught in a mother-tongue medium at the pre-primary level and during the first three years of primary school. The policy also states that, where the mother tongue should be used as the language of the immediate community (LIC), that is, the dominant language of the community which the child already speaks is recommended. There are areas in Nigeria where Nigerian Pidgin has acquired the mother tongue status and there are many Nigerians for whom it is as much a first language as the mother tongue (because they speak it with the same facility as they speak their different mother tongues, such that they are bilingual in their mother tongues and Nigerian Pidgin). It therefore follows that Nigerian Pidgin can be used in teaching many Nigerians where many local languages would have been required. This would remove the psychological shock which pupils experience when they leave home and find a new language which they do not speak and understand well. It is also a matter of common sense that a child (or anybody for that matter) learns better when taught in a language he understands very well. Therefore, our language policy ought logically to lead to the development of Nigerian Pidgin for use as official medium for teaching in our schools.
Recognition and development of Nigerian pidgin would also greatly reduce the cost of implementing the language provisions of our educational policy because the LIC option is basically a cost and time saving device and because Nigerian Pidgin is a dominant language in many communities across many states. This was the thinking of the national Commission for mass literacy, adult and Non-formal Education in 1992 when it set out to produce literacy materials in Nigerian Pidgin. Unfortunately, the project has since been suspended.
Nigerian Pidgin as a veritable tool of interaction serves as a ‘bridge’ between the mother tongue and Standard Nigerian English (NSE). According to Faraclas (nd), ‘Nigerian pidgin has most of the linguistic features of (NSE) and those that typify many other Nigerian languages. Therefore, as long as Nigerian Pidgin is not accorded the place it deserves in Nigerian education, an invaluable tool for the teaching of English will continue to lie wasted and unused’. Faraclas concludes by recommending that ‘official recognition should be extended to Nigerian Pidgin as a major Nigerian language’. Such a step would make Nigerian Pidginfully national in all the three senses of the terms, as mentioned above. The creativity of Nigerian Pidgin which has been mentioned is probably linked to the relative ease with which it is acquired or learned. A simple comparison shows what the difference is between learning Standard English and learning Nigerian Pidgin:
Nigerian Pidgin English
Rait Write
He de rait He is writing
He rait He wrote
He don rait He has written
I dey come I’ll be back
Dem Them
Sometin/Sontin Something
Wetin happen? what happened?
The invariable form of Nigerian Pidgin ‘rait’ contrast sharply with the parsing of ‘write’ in English. In addition, Nigerian pidgin is made easier by the fact that its lexicon can and does take words not only from English but also from other Nigerian languages. This means that speakers resort to words in their own languages where they think that the Nigerian Pidgin form should be strengthened. Elugbe and Omamor (1991) suggest that such creativity is reflected in the ease with which songs are composed and sung in Nigerian Pidgin. One should now add that songs written or song-composed require a certain relaxed and assured ease with a language. Therefore, Nigerian Pidgin speakers are always very much at ease with it. This creativity also reflects in a popular comedy show called ‘Night of Laughter’ where the entire programme is done in Nigerian Pidgin English. The modern information technology (Mobile Phone) on seeing the ease and creativity in Nigerian Pidgin has created a soft ware in Pidgin for its teaming population of clients. To be sincere, prompt customer care information service are better and are more understandable in Nigerian Pidgin than in Standard English. People from Warri, sapele, Kwale, benin-city, Ibusa among others are famous for their excellent ability to communicate eloquently in the language. Interestingly even the country leaders, clergy men and women, Justices, Judges, professors, the educated and non-educated understand and fully communicate in Pidgin English. The language is fast growing and the idea once held that the language is a language of the illiterates is fast eroding and gradually getting replaced as the unique language of Nigerians as even national team footballers of the country use the language as means of communication on the playing field. At least Nigeria now has a name in Pidgin English which is “Naija’ so the next time you hear Naija mentioned know it refers to Nigeria our beloved country.
2.4 NIGERIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH AS A MARGINAL VARIETY
Out of many common manifestations of language marginalisation, only one has been extensively researched in Nigeria: the non-recognition of minority languages at the local, state or national level (Oyelaran 1990). However, marginalisation can also come in the form of limited space or attention given to a particular language in printed or electronic forms. A language is considered marginal only when there are other languages to which we can compare it within the same speech community. There is a sense in which NPE can be regarded as a marginal language when we consider the fact that its written form, compared to the written forms of languages like English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, is on the margin. Not many literary works have been produced in NPE in Nigeria. When we compare the literary works written in any of the four languages mentioned above (i.e., English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo) in Nigeria with the few ones written in NPE, it would be apparent that NPE has been marginalised in the print medium. Apart from the fact that only a few novels or drama texts exist in NPE, most Nigerians do not often read or pay any serious academic attention to works written in NPE. This is born out of the attitudes that they have to the language. More importantly, while English and the other three national languages are codified, NPE is not. Politically, NPE is marginalised. While English and other major languages are recognised in our constitution, NPE is not at all. Two major reasons can be hypothesised for this. First is the fact that most Nigerians, including the elites, see NPE as a mere contact language which cannot be said to belong to any particular region unlike the three major languages which are regionally or ethnically based. As such, it (NPE) is not the language of any ethnic group. We can more or less see it, therefore, as being ethnically marginalised. Secondly, while each of Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and English is studied as a discipline in Nigeria’s secondary schools and higher institutions, as far as we know, there is no secondary school where NPE is taught as a subject. Similarly, there is no department of Nigerian Pidgin English in any higher institution in Nigeria although there are some dissertations which have examined one aspect or the other of NPE. This also implies that NPE is marginalised in Nigeria’s curriculum. The nonintroduction of NPE into the curriculum is political. The existence of such a department where NPE stands out as a discipline would mean that the government as well as universities in Nigeria will have to fund it. Ours is a country where the existing programmes in the nation’s citadels of learning and the entire university system are not properly funded by the government not to talk of introducing another one. So, the continuous marginalisation of NPE is indirectly linked to the lack of interest on the part of the government.
2.5 ATTITUDES TO NPE IN NIGERIA
Generally speaking, language attitudes can be studied from two theoretical frameworks: the behaviourist approach which focuses on the responses speakers of a language make about the social functions of the language (Fasold 1984) and the mentalist approach which considers attitudes as internal states that can be used to predict other behaviour (Ihemere 2006). In this study, we adopt the mentalist approach as many scholars have done (Apel and Muysken 1987; Baker 1992; Ihemere 2006; Long 1999; Zhou 1999). As Ihemere (2006) and Fasold (1984) have noted, the mentalist framework cannot account for how the mental states of users of a language can be studied directly without having to make inferences from the behaviour, however. Although theoretically speaking, no language is linguistically minor or major, legitimate or bastardised, people tend to perceive NPE as a corrupt, bastardised or lesser language (Igboanusi 2008; Mann 1996). As pointed out by Elugbe and Omamor (1991:146), attitudes to NPE are not determined by any objective criteria. In spite of the fact that NPE is used by more than two-thirds of the total population of Nigeria today (Faraclas 2004; Igboanusi 2008) and despite its use by people from different walks of life including graduates and professionals (Akande 2008), the general attitudes of the majority of Nigerians towards NPE are still not encouraging. Concerning this, Deuber (2005:183) says: Although a major lingua franca, it has no official recognition; even without any policy statements, it performs a growing range of functions, including, for example, that of a medium of public broadcasting, but no efforts have been made to develop it in order for it to be able to cope with these functions, as has been done for the major and to some extent also for minor indigenous languages. Deuber (2005:183) also notes that NPE is the most neglected language in Nigeria since no major roles are assigned to it. Elugbe and Omamor (1991) and Egbokhare (2003) suggest that NPE be given the status of an official or national language while Igboanusi (2008) calls for its use as a medium of instruction in the early stage of primary school education especially for NPE-speaking children. One major argument in support of the adoption of NPE as a national language is that it is a neutral code as it has no ethnic base. Igboanusi (2008:69) examines how NPE could be empowered in Nigeria and remarks that education is ‘the most important institution through which to raise the value of NP[NPE]’. However, Igboanusi’s (2008) study shows that there is no consensus among his subjects as to whether NPE should be given any official or national status as some of them believe, among other things, that NPE has no economic value.
2.6 SCOPE OF NIGP USAGE
A language which cuts across and survives in a heterogenous nation like Nigeria, must be “... easily understood by both the educated populace and the illiterate members of the society” (Olatunji, 2007:29). According to Olatunji (2007), the only language that best qualifies for this purpose in Nigeria is NigP. His assertion is affirmed by other scholars like Akande, who state that NigP is an inter-ethnic code available to Nigerians who have no other common language, therefore it is “a marker of identity and solidarity” (2008:38). Other scholars see NigP as a neutral language, one which escapes both the “elitist connotations” of English and “the ethnic connotations” of the indigenous languages (Deuber, 2005: 51). The absence of these connotations, I believe, is a critical factor in the continual survival, spread and vitality of NigP, as well as its preference by Nigerians. By applying the domains of language use classification by Fishman (1972) to NigP, it becomes evident that NigP features prominently in the family, friendship, and the unofficial business domains. It is, however, only partially used in the religious domain and significantly excluded in both the official and education domains (Ndimele, 2008). It has been observed, however, that despite the exclusion of NigP officially as a medium of instruction in schools, “in Rivers and Bayelsa states, teachers resort to the use of NigP for explanatory purposes, especially in the early stages of primary education, since there is no other common language among the pupils” (Ndimele, 2003:357). In a study on the language spoken by various Nigerian groups in informal domains by Igboanusi & Peter (2005), 24 percent of the population of minority language speakers in Southern Nigeria spoke NigP at home, while 39 percent spoke standard English. In the overall survey, Hausa, English and NigP are projected as languages that will “dominate communication in Nigeria in the informal domains where mother-tongues are expected to be used” (Igboanusi, 2005:142). NigP has also been framed ideologically. Its ideological dimensions are said to be in the nature, meaning and function of the language variety (Bamiro, 2009). It is inherent in the social and functional power of NigP in interpreting the Nigerian social structure27, a structure which is said to be “polarised along the rich-poor axis” (Bamiro,2009:277). NigP as a language thus provides an ideological zone for “working out social meanings and enacting social differences between the dominant and dominated classes” (Bamiro, 2006: 316). It is also seen as a ‘deviant’ language, which challenges “the authority and hegemonic territoriality” of the English language (Bamiro, 2006: 319). This view is particularly useful in media studies because the appropriation of the concept of hegemony has consistently given NigP more visibility. This invariably played out in the adoption of the language as a medium of broadcast for twenty four hour radio services. Even in a regimented society like the Nigerian armed forces, NigP has since emerged as the lingua franca (Luckham, 1971). It has been described as the “unofficial language of the armed forces28 and the police” (Bamgbose,1991:29). It has “widespread use in the army and the police”, (Simpson and Oyetade 2008:192). Apparently, this is because the heterogeniety of the population in army formations across the country reflects the multi lingual and multicultural nature of Nigeria. But Eze (1980) adds that the mobility of people of different ethnic groups as well as the “educational and social background during the civil war and the subsequent social restructuring contributed to the liberalisation of pidgin usage in the army” (Eze,1980:52). Police, army and other service barracks are considered as “areas traditionally associated with NigP” (Elugbe and Omamor, 1991:140-141). Presently in Nigeria, comedy is a thriving profession and NigP is its major medium of communication.This is largely because of the humour inherent in NigP as a spoken language (Kemper, 2008), and NigP’s ability to retain sounding qualifiers or words (Olatunji,2001). Grammatically, qualifiers in NigP have onomatopeic characters, unlike English adverbs or adjectives, which qualify a noun in abstract. This conforms with features of indigenous African languages, most of which operate by using a word and a corresponding sound to convey a meaning. These words thus describe the meaning, sound it and qualify it (Olatunji, 2001). These are words like ‘gragra’, ‘gbosa’, ‘fiam’, which mean ‘commotion-hustle’, ‘sound of a loud explosion’, and ‘all of a sudden’ respectively (Orhiunu, 2000). NigP is used in songs, oral literature, radio programming and sections in several newspapers (Barbag-Stoll,1983:39). The use of NigP in newspapers dates back to the 1980’s with Lagos Life29 and ‘Wakabout’ (Elugbe and Omamor, 1991: 55). Despite the nonrecognition of NigP officially, all tiers of government in Nigeria use it for social and health mobilisation programmes, political campaigns and public service announcements (Mann, 2000). In music, NigP has featured in songs since the country’s independence, nowadays contemporary and popular musicians blend NigP, English language and other Nigerian languages in songs. Major stage plays31 have been performed in NigP, popular radio and TV drama in NigP abound from the 1950’s and boomed especially in the 1980’s and '90’s. Nollywood, Nigeria’s movie industry, has also influenced the currency of NigP. A new commercial television station WAP TV, in Lagos now devotes a large percentage of its airtime to NigP programmes Although NigP has no standard orthography, prominent literary figures in Nigeria like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Ken Saro Wiwa34 have used NigP in their works. Today, NigP is primarily used in corporate newspaper and magazine adverts. There are several examples of the preference for NigP as a medium of communication in advertising, because of the mass market of NigP speakers . Orally, NigP is used in popular radio and TV jingles. In terms of usage on new media platforms, there are websites, blogs and Facebook pages which use NigP as the medium of communication. In sports, NigP is the official language each time the national football team is in camp (Ayinor, 2012). It has been observed that “even the national football team” use NigP on the pitch (Esogbue cited in Osuagwu, 2010:3). This is in response to the heterogeneity of languages spoken by these footballers, who are drawn from different ethnic groups in Nigeria (Ayinor, 2012). NigP has, however, been continually excluded in the politics of language in Nigeria, both formally in the language policy of the nation formulated in the 1970’s and informally in the lack of socio-linguistic associations and pressure groups which could press for its inclusion. Rather than press for the official recognition of NigP, speakers of minority languages35 in areas where NigP has creolised, struggle for the recognition, survival and rights of their more marginalised languages in Nigeria’s language policy (Ndimele, 2011:12; Mowarin, 2010:4- 5). Despite this opposition to NigP, it has survived primarily because it functions as the ‘fall back’ language when there is a language crisis in Nigeria. During the Nigerian civil war, NigP was used for propaganda purposes (Todd 1974 cited in Elugbe & Omamor,1991:123). After the war, minority groups in Eastern Nigeria switched to NigP for the purposes of intergroup communication (Igboanusi & Peter, 2005; Kemper, 2008). Despite its treatment in the past as ‘uneducated speech', and reservations by some scholars about NigP attaining a national language status (Jowitt,1991), there are calls for NigP to be accorded the status of a national language (Okon,1997; Onuigbo,1999; Essien, 2003; Deuber, 2005). Deuber argues that it is “a more realistic one, than the trilingual option which forms the basis of present language policies” (Deuber, 2005:188-189). NigP has also had notable influence on neighbouring countries to Nigeria. NigP is referred to as ‘Abongo Brofo’ which means ‘English of the military’ in Ghana (Dako, 2002). This is because at a point in history, NigP speaking troops formed a sizeable portion of the Ghanian military (Dako, 2002; Pipkins, 20