Pidgin English in Nigeria from 1750
After the Portuguese influence in West Africa had ended the English came to Nigeria around 1750. In the beginning they concentrated on the costal areas, especially in the Niger delta, and therefore Pidgin English started as a special costal connotation because of the urgent needs of communication between the English and the natives. The Europeans that were in contact with the local population were in the beginning mostly slave traders. As the growing demands for slaves for the transatlantic plantations spread the slavers moved inland, spreading Pidgin English to the interior of Nigeria.
The European ships could be anchored for months off the Nigerian coast while slaves were collected and these places became trading posts for the trading ships. To communicate with the local people Pidgin English developed. Pidgin English uses English as the base language mixed with one or more native languages. Pidgin Portuguese was already well known and it served as a model for Pidgin English.
The Europeans and the Africans developed commercial relationships, the slavers got their slaves and the Africans got some of the western technology, and they learned how to speak and write in English.
In the middle of the 19th century missionaries settled in Nigeria. The missionaries wanted to teach the local people about Christianity and to do that they needed to be able to read and write.
The Africans welcomed the missionaries because they could teach them English.
Literacy became to the Africans a means to influence and status.
The mission educators taught Standard English but the Pidgin English were already well established in Nigeria as a form of communication between the black and white, and it served as a means of identity.
From the slave ships some of the slaves had been liberated and they first settled in Sierra Leone, there they developed a pidgin English to communicate with each other, because they were f...