Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

There's pidgin English in Nigeria.

When you first hear it you think it's a different language.




There's all kinds of pidgin Englishes (and Frenches and cetera...)

In fact, it's almost impossible NOT to spontaneously invent a pidgin when there's a language barrier between two people or peoples. When I was in Vietnam, my friends and I adapted our English ad-hoc depending on who we were speaking to. With merchants with very little English, we'd speak only in numbers and yes/no, and maybe say please/thanks in each others' languages. With our tour guides who were much more fluent, we could speak in complete sentences, but still tried to keep things in present tense, and tended to ask questions by using a declarative word order with a rising tone ("we go to the hotel now?").

And we did this all instinctively--it's easy to see how well-defined pidgin languages can arise from this sort of linguistic adaptation between two or more populations.


The pidgin ("business") English that has official status in New Guinea is a different language, recognizably derived from English but different.


Which kind talk be dat?

Na craze talk be dat




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: