Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Varieties of English
Varieties of English
A pidgin may be built from words, sounds, or body language from a multitude of languages.. As
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. As
a result of the Europeans coming to the coastal part of African continent and their engagement in
slave trade, pidgin was given birth to in Africa. This presentation seeks to highlight the semantic
vocabulary and phonological differences between pidgin and British English.
Flog – to beat
Masa Boss
Pusi cat
Belle stomach
Ofoto Photographer
Bear-bear beard
belle stomach
palaver problem
mess fart
Oga Master
Abeg Master
Chillin enjoyment
Hala call
Koti police
Semantics is a branch in language that is concerned with meanings. There are a lot of
vocabularies with different meanings in British English. Over the years, Pidgin English has
borrowed many vocabularies from British English which turns to somehow have different
meaning when they are used in the pidgin English. These are some of the examples of British
vocabularies when used in Pidgin English but have different semantic meaning.
Drop- to let something fall The lady go drop at Kejetia. The lady will alight at Kejetia
Doe- female rabbit or deer My paddy get doe My friend has money
Thief- someone who steals The man dey thief you. The man is stealing from you
Shine- brightness from a Make you shine your eyes. You must be vigilant.
source of light.
Pepper- aspice vegetable that I go show you pepper, I will show a lesson
has hot taste
Throw- to make an object Lemme throw you. Let me see you off.
move quickly in the air.
Vim- energy and enthusiasm Lets go with vim. Lets go with courage .
Phonology as a field of studies is about how sounds are organized and how words are words
pronounced. Some dictionaries explains phonology as the study of the sounds function in
languages, including phonemes, syllable structure, stress, accent, intonation, and which sounds
are units within a language. With the borrowed words from British English, Pidgin English has
developed its own phonological systems of pronouncing the words. Below are some British
words that are pronounced differently in Pidgin English.
British English Pidgin English
talk tok
liar laya
brother broad
party partey
brother bro
sister sis
fire faya
because cos
walk waka
Syntax, as another branch of language deals with the set of rules that govern how words are put
together to form phrases and sentences. Pidgin English do not adhere to these rules.
Eg
P. E. You Barb?
P. E. I don’t know.
P. E. Yaa is pregnant