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51-458: It can be spoken as a pidgin , a creole, dialect or a decreolised acrolect by different speakers, who may switch between these forms depending on the social setting. Variations of what this article refers to as "Nigerian Pidgin" are also spoken across West and Central Africa , in countries such as Benin , Ghana , and Cameroon . Nigerian Pidgin is commonly used throughout the country, but it has not been granted official status. Pidgin breaks

102-442: A tonal language , having a high tone and a low tone. The high tone can be written with an acute accent , and the low tone, though typically left unmarked, can be written with a grave accent . Additionally, monosyllabic high-tone words shift into a high falling tone before a pause. However, this has been contested by subsequent linguists, due to variance in pitch intonation on lexemes, especially for questions. One rival suggestion

153-399: A language are pidgins. Each pidgin has its own norms of usage which must be learned for proficiency in the pidgin. A pidgin differs from a creole , which is the first language of a speech community of native speakers that at one point arose from a pidgin. Unlike pidgins, creoles have fully developed vocabulary and patterned grammar. Most linguists believe that a creole develops through

204-506: A pidgin need not always precede a creole nor a creole evolve from a pidgin. Pidgins, according to Mufwene, emerged among trade colonies among "users who preserved their native vernaculars for their day-to-day interactions". Creoles, meanwhile, developed in settlement colonies in which speakers of a European language, often indentured servants whose language would be far from the standard in the first place, interacted extensively with non-European slaves , absorbing certain words and features from

255-462: A pidgin usually requires: Keith Whinnom (in Hymes (1971) ) suggests that pidgins need three languages to form, with one (the superstrate) being clearly dominant over the others. Linguists sometimes posit that pidgins can become creole languages when a generation of children learn a pidgin as their first language, a process that regularizes speaker-dependent variation in grammar. Creoles can then replace

306-623: A process of nativization of a pidgin when children of speakers of an acquired pidgin learn it and use it as their native language. Pidgin derives from a Chinese pronunciation of the English word business , and all attestations from the first half of the nineteenth century given in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary mean "business; an action, occupation, or affair" (the earliest being from 1807). The term pidgin English ('business English'), first attested in 1855, shows

357-441: A total surface area of 344 square kilometres (133 sq mi), or about 88% of the total country area, 19 times that of the country's second largest island Bequia . The coastline measures about 84 kilometres (52 mi). The climate is tropical and humid, with an average temperature of between 18 and 31 °C (64 and 88 °F) depending on altitude. More than 95% of the beaches on the mainland have black sand, while most of

408-416: Is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from several languages. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade , or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the country in which they reside (but where there

459-739: Is a volcanic island in the Caribbean . It is the largest island of the country Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and is located in the Caribbean Sea , between Saint Lucia and Grenada . It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains. Its largest volcano and the country's highest peak, La Soufrière , is active, with the latest episode of volcanic activity having begun in December 2020 and intensifying in April 2021. There were major territory wars between

510-496: Is also a sizable mixed-race minority (19%). In 2012, the population of the island was approximately 130,000. The main religions are Anglican (47%), Methodist (10%), Roman Catholic (13%), other Protestant denominations such as Seventh-day Adventism and Spiritual baptism , as well as Hinduism . Adult literacy was 88.1% in 2004. Infant mortality in 2006 was 17 per 1,000 live births and life expectancy for men stood at 69 years, 74 years for women. The active workforce in 2006

561-604: Is commonly referred to by its speakers as "Pidgin". The term jargon has also been used to refer to pidgins, and is found in the names of some pidgins, such as Chinook Jargon . In this context, linguists today use jargon to denote a particularly rudimentary type of pidgin; however, this usage is rather rare, and the term jargon most often means the specialized vocabulary of some profession. Pidgins may start out as or become trade languages , such as Tok Pisin . Trade languages can eventually evolve into fully developed languages in their own right, such as Swahili , distinct from

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612-504: Is in the Lesser Antilles chain; it is 29 kilometres (18 mi) long and 18 kilometres (11 mi) wide and it is located 160 kilometres (99 mi) west of Barbados. It is very mountainous and heavily forested. It has a 1,234-metre (4,049 ft) active volcano, La Soufriere , which erupted violently in 1812 and 1902. The most recent eruption was on 9 April 2021, which resulted in the evacuation of 20,000 residents. The island has

663-564: Is most widely spoken in the oil state Niger Delta where most of its population speak it as their first language. There are accounts of pidgin being spoken first in colonial Nigeria before being adopted by other countries along the West African coast. While Pidgin is spoken by many, there are wide swathes of Nigeria where Pidgin is not spoken or understood, especially among those without secular education in core northern parts — Gombe State , Yobe State — of Nigeria. Nigerian Pidgin, along with

714-442: Is no common language between the groups). Fundamentally, a pidgin is a simplified means of linguistic communication, as it is constructed impromptu, or by convention, between individuals or groups of people. A pidgin is not the native language of any speech community, but is instead learned as a second language. A pidgin may be built from words, sounds, or body language from a multitude of languages as well as onomatopoeia . As

765-498: Is that Nigerian Pidgin "is something of a pitch-accent language in which, given a word there may be only one high tone, or one sequence thereof in opposition to one low sequence"; downdrift is attested in the intonational system. Most written texts in Nigerian Pidgin do not show any tonal markings, and do not reflect any lexical pitch differences. Pidgin A pidgin / ˈ p ɪ dʒ ɪ n / , or pidgin language ,

816-480: Is very similar to both American and British English , and it is often referred to as a group of different sub-varieties. Although there is not a formal description of Nigerian English, scholars agree that Nigerian English is a recognizable and unique variety of English. Nigerian Pidgin, like many pidgins and creoles, has a simpler phonology than the superstrate language. It has 23 consonants , seven vowels , and two tones . Nigerian Pidgin has been described as

867-582: The Bight of Benin ). For example, you sabi do am? means "do you know how to do it?". Sabi means "to know" or "to know how to", just as "to know" is saber in Portuguese. (According to the monogenetic theory of pidgins , sabir was a basic word in Mediterranean Lingua Franca , brought to West Africa through Portuguese pidgin. An English cognate is savvy .) Also, pikin or " pickaninny " comes from

918-541: The Caribbean , as does the presence of words and phrases that are identical in the languages on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Me a go tell dem (I'm going to tell them) and make we (let us). A copula deh or dey is found in both Caribbean Creole and Nigerian Pidgin English. The phrase We dey foh London would be understood by both a speaker of Creole and a speaker of Nigerian Pidgin to mean "We are in London" (although

969-609: The Sapele - Warri - Ughelli dialect that has majorly influenced large parts of Nigeria , Benin City dialect that has its influence from Bini language , Port Harcourt dialect that has elements of the mixed tribes in Rivers State , Lagos (particularly in Ajegunle influenced by sizeable Niger Deltan populace); and Onitsha varieties that draws influence from Igbo language . Nigerian Pidgin

1020-448: The lexicon of any pidgin will be limited to core vocabulary, words with only a specific meaning in the lexifier language may acquire a completely new (or additional) meaning in the pidgin. Pidgins have historically been considered a form of patois , unsophisticated simplified versions of their lexifiers, and as such usually have low prestige with respect to other languages. However, not all simplified or "unsophisticated" forms of

1071-442: The 1860s as laborers. After emancipation, the economy began a period of decline, with many landowners abandoning their estates and leaving the land to be cultivated by liberated slaves. Conditions remained harsh for both former slaves and immigrant agricultural workers, as depressed world sugar prices kept the economy stagnant until the turn of the 20th century. The Opobo king Jaja was exiled to St. Vincent after his 1887 arrest by

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1122-507: The 18th century. The first Europeans to occupy St. Vincent were the French. However, following a series of wars and peace treaties, these islands were eventually ceded to the British. While the English were the first to lay claim to St. Vincent in 1627, the French, centred on the island of Martinique , became the first Europeans to invade the island, establishing their first colony at Barrouallie on

1173-479: The British for shipping cargoes of palm oil directly to Liverpool without the intermediation of the National African Company . A Crown Colony government was installed in 1877, a Legislative Council created in 1925, and universal adult suffrage granted in 1951. During this period, the British made several unsuccessful attempts to affiliate St. Vincent with other Windward Islands in order to govern

1224-415: The British. A representative assembly was authorized in 1776. The British abolished slavery in 1834. Like the French before them, the British made African slaves work plantations of sugar, coffee, indigo, tobacco, cotton and cocoa until full emancipation in 1838. The resulting labour shortages on the plantations attracted Portuguese immigrants, many of them of Jewish descent, in the 1840s, and East Indians in

1275-458: The Grenadines are formally called Vincentians; colloquially they are known as "Vincies" or "Vincys". The majority of the island's population is of Afro-Vincentian descent. However, a sizable portion of the population consists of Black Carib descendants, white descendants of English colonists, Portuguese descendants of indentured servants and a significant number of Indo-Vincentians , descendants of indentured workers with Indian heritage . There

1326-587: The Jamaican is more likely to say Wi de a London and the Surinamese way is Wi de na London .) The word originates from the Igbo word di meaning the same thing and pronounced similarly: anu di na ofe (literally "meat is in pot") and anyi di na london (lit. "we are in London"). Other similarities, such as pikin (Nigerian Pidgin for "child") and pikney (used in islands like St.Vincent , Antigua and St. Kitts , akin to

1377-577: The Leeward side of St. Vincent in 1719. African slaves were forced to cultivate coffee, tobacco, indigo, corn, and sugar on plantations operated by the French colonizers. Under French dominion, Saint Vincent was known as Ile Saint Marcouf. St. Vincent was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris (1763) , after which friction between the British and the natives led to the First Carib War . Upon taking control of

1428-624: The Portuguese words pequeno and pequenino , which mean "small" and "small child" respectively. Similar to the Caribbean Creole situation, Nigerian Pidgin is mostly used in informal conversations. Nigerian Pidgin has no status as an official language. Nigerian English is used in politics, education, science, and media. In Nigeria, English is acquired through formal education. As English has been in contact with multiple different languages in Nigeria, Nigerian English has become much more prominent and

1479-403: The beaches in the Grenadines have white sand. For many years, this sand was used in the building industry. During recent times, because of destruction to the coastal areas, the government has restricted the amount of sand that may be removed from beaches, as well as the specific beaches from which sand may be removed. The sand is still used in construction of metalled roads, as it blends in with

1530-483: The colour of the asphalt used for road construction. Saint Vincent is home to endemic birds including the lesser Antillean Tanager , the whistling warbler , and the Saint Vincent amazon . Some pockets of tropical rainforest are left on the volcanic hills. Two species of reptile which are native to Saint Vincent are named for the island, Chironius vincenti and Sphaerodactylus vincenti . On 9 April 2021,

1581-529: The communication barrier between different ethnic groups and it is widely spoken throughout Nigeria. In 2011, Google launched a search interface in Pidgin. In 2017, BBC started BBC News Pidgin to provide services in Pidgin. Many of the 250 or more ethnic groups in Nigeria can converse in the language, though many speakers will use words from their native tongues. For example: Nigerian Pidgin also varies from place to place. Dialects of Nigerian Pidgin may include

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1632-594: The creole languages of the Caribbean are for the most part mutually intelligible with the creole languages of West Africa. The presence of repetitive phrases in Caribbean Creole such as su-su (gossip) and pyaa-pyaa (sickly) mirror the presence of such phrases in West African languages such as bam-bam , which means "complete" in the Yoruba language. Repetitious phrases are also present in Nigerian Pidgin, such as koro-koro meaning "clear vision", yama-yama meaning "disgusting", and doti-doti meaning "garbage". Furthermore,

1683-692: The existing mix of languages to become the native language of a community (such as the Chavacano language in the Philippines , Krio in Sierra Leone , and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea ). However, not all pidgins become creole languages; a pidgin may die out before this phase would occur (e.g. the Mediterranean Lingua Franca ). Other scholars, such as Salikoko Mufwene , argue that pidgins and creoles arise independently under different circumstances, and that

1734-399: The first 2021 eruption of La Soufrière occurred and another "explosive event" was reported two days later; eruptions were expected to continue for some time. Approximately 16,000 people were required to evacuate the area of their homes. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves made this comment to the news media: "water supplies to most of the island had been cut off and its airspace closed because of

1785-627: The indigenous population of the Black Caribs , also called the Garifuna , and Great Britain in the 18th century, before the island was ceded to the British in 1763, and again in 1783. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gained independence from the United Kingdom on 27 October 1979, and became part of the British Commonwealth of Nations thereafter. Approximately 130,000 people currently live on

1836-611: The inhabitants to the rugged interior, but the Spanish were not able to settle the island. In the 1500s Columbus and the conquistadors noted there was a significantly large African population living amongst the native population, whom they assumed had come from shipwrecked slave ships or escaped from St. Lucia or Grenada to seek refuge in St. Vincent. They were called "Black Caribs", but are now known as Garifuna . The large population aggressively prevented European settlement on St. Vincent until

1887-487: The island in 1763, the British laid the foundations of Fort Charlotte which was completed in 1806. The island was reverted to French rule in 1779 , then regained by the British under the Treaty of Versailles (1783) . Between 1793 and 1796, the Black Caribs, led by their chief, Joseph Chatoyer , fought a series of battles against the British. The combat ultimately ended in a treaty, after which 5,000 Garifuna were exiled to

1938-510: The island, and the population saw significant migration to the UK in the early 1900s, and between the 1940s, and 1980s. There has also been significant migration to Canada, and other larger neighbouring Anglo-Caribbean islands. The main island consists of the capital Kingstown , with the rest of the island divided into, five main coastal strip towns of; Layou , Barrouallie , Chateaubelair , Georgetown , and Calliaqua . The people of Saint Vincent and

1989-647: The island. Additional "explosive events" occurred on 11 April and on 12 April. On that latter day, the volcano "continued to erupt explosively" and was generating "pyroclastic flows" that were "destroying everything in its path". In 2002, Saint Vincent was one of the filming locations for the American adventure fantasy film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl . Filming took place from October 2002 through to March 2003, and several hundreds of

2040-557: The languages they were originally influenced by. Trade languages and pidgins can also influence an established language's vernacular , especially amongst people who are directly involved in a trade where that pidgin is commonly used, which can alternatively result in a regional dialect being developed. Pidgins are usually less morphologically complex but more syntactically rigid than other languages, and usually have fewer morphosyntactic irregularities than other languages. Characteristics shared by most pidgins: The initial development of

2091-523: The region through a unified administration. The most notable was the West Indies Federation , which collapsed in 1962. Life on the island was made even harder following two eruptions of the La Soufriere volcano in 1812 and 1902 when much of the island was destroyed and many people were killed. The volcano erupted again in 1979, with no fatalities, and in 2020–2021. St. Vincent and the Grenadines

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2142-438: The slaves' non-European native languages, resulting in a heavily basilectalized version of the original language. These servants and slaves would come to use the creole as an everyday vernacular, rather than merely in situations in which contact with a speaker of the superstrate was necessary. Many of these languages are commonly referred to by their speakers as "Pidgin". Saint Vincent (island) Saint Vincent

2193-429: The smaller island of Baliceaux off the coast of Bequia . Conflict between the British and the indigenous peoples continued until 1796, when General Ralph Abercromby ended a revolt fomented by the radical Victor Hugues . The British deported more than 5,000 Black Caribs to Roatán , an island off the coast of Honduras . From 1763 until independence, St. Vincent passed through various stages of colonial status under

2244-448: The smoke and thick plumes of volcanic ash moving through the atmosphere". An official added: "we are covered in ash and strong sulphur scents pervade the air ... take the necessary precautions to remain safe and healthy". Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International sent five ships in total, with a capacity of 7,500, to assist with the evacuation. Barbados dispatched a "humanitarian assistance and disaster response" mission to

2295-478: The standard-English pejorative/epithet pickaninny ) and chook (Nigerian Pidgin for "poke" or "stab") which corresponds with the Trinidadian creole word juk , and also corresponds to chook used in other West Indian islands. Being derived partly from the present day Edo/Delta area of Nigeria, there are still some words left over from the Portuguese language in pidgin English (Portuguese ships traded slaves from

2346-482: The term in transition to referring to language, and by the 1860s the term pidgin alone could refer to Pidgin English. The term came to be used in a more general linguistic sense to refer to any simplified language by the late 19th century. A popular false etymology for pidgin is English pigeon , a bird sometimes used for carrying brief written messages, especially in times prior to modern telecommunications . The word pidgin , formerly also spelled pigion ,

2397-524: The use of words of West African origin in Surinamese Creole (Sranan Tongo) and Jamaican Patois , such as unu and Bajan dialect wunna or una – West African Pidgin (meaning "you people", a word that comes from the Igbo word unu or unuwa also meaning "you people"), display some of the interesting similarities between the English pidgins and creoles of West Africa and the English pidgins and creoles of

2448-611: The various pidgin and creole languages of West Africa , share similarities to the various English-based Creoles found in the Caribbean. Linguists posit that this is because most of the enslaved that were taken to the New World were of West African descent. The pronunciation and accents often differ a great deal, mainly due to the extremely heterogeneous mix of African languages present in the West Indies, but if written on paper or spoken slowly,

2499-447: Was 57,695 and unemployment in 2004 was 12%. Before 1498, the island was called Hairouna by its indigenous inhabitants. Christopher Columbus named the island Saint Vincent, since it is said to have been discovered on 22 January, the feast day of the patron saint of Lisbon and Valencia, Vincent of Saragossa . The Spanish conquistadors embarked on slaving expeditions in and around St. Vincent following royal sanction in 1511, driving

2550-424: Was first applied to Chinese Pidgin English , but was later generalized to refer to any pidgin. Pidgin may also be used as the specific name for local pidgins or creoles , in places where they are spoken. For example, the name of the creole language Tok Pisin derives from the English words talk pidgin . Its speakers usually refer to it simply as "pidgin" when speaking English. Likewise, Hawaiian Creole English

2601-532: Was granted associate statehood status by Britain on 27 October 1969, giving it complete control over its internal affairs. Following a referendum in 1979, St. Vincent and the Grenadines became the last of the Windward Islands to gain independence, on 27 October 1979, though it remains a member of the Commonwealth of Nations . It celebrates Independence Day every year on 27 October. The island of Saint Vincent

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