Cover not available

In:Advances in Contact Linguistics: In honour of Pieter Muysken
Edited by Norval Smith, Tonjes Veenstra and Enoch O. Aboh
[Contact Language Library 57] 2020
► pp. 61–84

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Sociolinguistic characteristics of the English-lexifier contact languages of West Africa

 | The University of Hong Kong
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/coll.57.02yak
Abstract
This chapter provides a comparison of key sociolinguistic characteristics of Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin, Ghanaian Pidgin English, Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) and Krio (Sierra Leone). In the past few decades, these African English-lexifier contact languages (AECs) have seen an exponential growth in speaker numbers and an expansion into domains once reserved for English and non-creole African languages. All AECs nevertheless still struggle with a low sociolinguistic prestige and the absence of corpus and status planning initiatives by state actors. Overall, the potential of these languages remains relatively untapped across the region for education, political participation, economic, and cultural activity. At the same time, the impact of the AECs on smaller languages through contact and shift to the AECs is also likely to make itself felt in coming decades.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The English-lexifier contact languages of West Africa
  • 3.The sociolinguistic situation of the West African AECs
    • 3.1Nigerian Pidgin
    • 3.2Cameroon Pidgin
    • 3.3Krio (Sierra Leone)
    • 3.4Ghanaian Pidgin English
    • 3.5Pichi (Equatorial Guinea)
    • 3.6Summary of findings
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (90)
References
Adegbija, E. 2004. Language policy and planning in Nigeria. Current Issues in Language Planning 5(3): 181–246. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Agheyisi, R. N. 1988. The standardization of Nigerian Pidgin English. English World-Wide 9(2): 227–241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alobwede D’Epie, C. 1998. Banning Pidgin English in Cameroon? English Today 14(1): 54–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anchimbe, E. A. 2013. Language Policy and Identity Construction: The Dynamics of Cameroon’s Multilingualism [Impact: Studies in Language and Society 32]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anonymous. 1984. Revised Kono, Krio, Limba, Mende and Themne Orthographies – Workshop Held during April 24–27, 1984. Freetown, Sierra Leone: Ministry of Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arends, J., Muysken, P. C. & Smith, N. S. H. (eds). 1995. Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction [Creole Language Library 15]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Asociación Cristiana de Traducciones Biblicas. n.d. Kálara Nzamá Faŋ Guinea Ecuatorial. Bata: n.p.
Ayafor, M. & Green, M. J. 2017. Cameroon Pidgin English: A Comprehensive Grammar [London Oriental and African Language Library 20]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakker, P. 2008. Pidgins versus creoles and pidgincreoles. In The Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies, S. Kouwenberg & J. V. Singler (eds), 130–57. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baldauf, R. B. & Kaplan, R. B. 2004. Language Planning and Policy in Africa, Vol. 1. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2007. Language Planning and Policy in Africa, Vol. 2. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berry, J. 1961. English loanwords and adaptations in Sierra Leone Krio. In Creole Language Studies II, R. B. le Page (ed.), 1–16. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bible Society in Sierra Leone. 2013. Krio fɔs oli Baybul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolekia Boleká, J. 2005. La francofonía: El nuevo rostro del colonialismo en África. Salamanca: Signum S.G.E.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brock-Utne, B. 2010. Research and policy on the language of instruction issue in Africa. International Journal of Educational Development 30(6): 636–645. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corum, M. 2015. Substrate and Adstrate: The Origins of Spatial Semantics in West African Pidgincreoles. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crevels, M. & Muysken, P. C. (eds). 2009. Lenguas de Bolivia, 4 Vols. La Paz: Plural editores.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dako, K. 2002. Student Pidgin (SP): The language of the educated male elite. Research Review from the Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ghana 18(2): 53–62.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. Student Pidgin: A masculine code encroached on by young women. In Gender and Language in Sub-Saharan Africa: Tradition, Struggle and Change [Impact: Studies in Language and Society 33], L. L. Atanga, S. E. Ellece, L. Litosseliti & J. Sunderland (eds), 217–231. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Decker, T. 1988. Juliohs Siza. Edited by N. Shrimpton and N. Sulayman, Vol. 4 [Krio Publications Series]. Umeå: Umeå University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Devonish, H. 1986. Language and Liberation: Creole Language Politics in the Caribbean. London: Karia Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010. The language heritage of the Caribbean: Linguistic genocide and resistance. Glossa 5(1): 1–26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Faraclas, N. G. 2004. Nigerian Pidgin English: Morphology and syntax. In A Handbook of Varieties of English, Vol 2: Morphology and Syntax, B. Kortmann, E. W. Schneider, K. Burridge, T. Mesthrie & C. Upton (eds), 828–853. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1996. Nigerian Pidgin. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. Nigerian Pidgin. In The Survey of Pidgin and Creole Languages: English-based and Dutch-based Languages, S. Michaelis, P. Maurer, M. Haspelmath & M. Huber (eds), 176–184. Oxford: OUP. <[URL]> (9 June 2020).
1986. Reading and Writing Nigerian Pidgin. Port Harcourt: Rivers Readers Project (RRP).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Finney, M. A. 2011. Krio (Sierra Leone Creole). In Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English, Bernd Kortmann & Kerstin Lunkenheimer (eds). Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. <[URL]> (23 April 2020).
2013. Krio. In The Survey of Pidgin and Creole Languages: English-based and Dutch-based Languages, S. Michaelis, P. Maurer, M. Haspelmath & M. Huber (eds), 1:157–166. Oxford: OUP. <[URL]> (23 April 2020).
Fonka, H. M. 2016. Is Cameroon Pidgin English a pidgin, a pidgincreole or a creole? Yaoundé.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fyle, C. N. & Jones, E. D. 1980. A Krio-English Dictionary. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gani-Ikilama, T. O. 1990. Use of Nigerian Pidgin in education: Why not? In Multilingualism, Minority Languages and Language Policy in Nigeria, E. N. Emenanjo (ed.), 219–227. Agbor, Nigeria: Central Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gift, A. 2019. Romeo and Juliet don land for pidgin. BBC News Pidgin, July 4, 2019, sec. Tori. <[URL]> (26 September 2019).
Hancock, I. F. 1971. A Study of the Sources and Development of the Lexicon of Sierra Leone Krio. PhD dissertation, University of London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1987. A preliminary classification of Anglophone Atlantic creoles, with syntactic data from thirty-three representative dialects. In Pidgin and Creole Languages: Essays in Memory of John Reinecke, G. G. Gilbert (ed.), 264–333. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, B. 1992. Language policies in Africa. In Language and Society in Africa: The Theory and Practice of Sociolinguistics, R. K. Herbert (ed), 23–35. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2000. Restructuring in vitro? Evidence from early Krio. In Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages [Creole Language Library 22], I. Neumann-Holzschuh & E. W. Schneider (eds), 275–307. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. Ghanaian Pidgin English. In The Survey of Pidgin and Creole Languages: English-based and Dutch-based Languages, S. Michaelis, P. Maurer, M. Haspelmath & M. Huber (eds), 1:167–175. Oxford: OUP. <[URL]> (23 April 2020).
Huber, M. & Görlach, M. 1996. West African Pidgin English. English World-Wide 17(2): 239–258. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Igboanusi, H. 2008. Empowering Nigerian Pidgin: A challenge for status planning? World Englishes 27(1): 68–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ihemere, K. U. 2006. A basic description and analytic treatment of noun clauses in Nigerian Pidgin. Nordic journal of African Studies 15(3): 296–313.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, E. D. 1968. Some tense, mode and aspects markers in Krio. African Language Review 7: 86–89.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Juffermans, K. & McGlynn, C. 2010. A sociolinguistic profile of The Gambia. Sociolinguistic Studies 3(3): 329–355. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kouega, J.-P. 2008. A Dictionary of Cameroon Pidgin English Usage: Pronunciation, Grammar and Vocabulary [Lincom Studies in Pidgin & Creole Linguistics 9]. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lewis, M. P., Simons, G. F. & Fennig, C. D. (eds). 2013. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Dallas TX: SIL International. <[URL]> (30 May 2013).
Lynn, M. 1984. Commerce, christianity and the origins of the “Creoles” of Fernando Po. The Journal of African History 25(3): 257–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mbangwana, P. 1983. The scope and role of Pidgin English in Cameroon. In A Sociolinguistic Profile of Urban Centers in Cameroon, E. L. Koenig, E. N. Chia & J. F. Povey (eds), 79–92. Los Angeles CA: Crossroad Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molindo, E. A. 1996. Cameroon Pidgin Bible. Yaoundé: n.p.
Momoh, A. & Adejumobi, S. 2002. The National Question in Nigeria: Comparative Perspectives. Aldershot Burlington: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morgades Besari, T. 2011. Los criollos (Fernandinos-Kriös) de Guinea Ecuatorial. La Gaceta de Guinea Ecuatorial, April 2011, No. 162 edition, sec. Misceláneas.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Muysken, P. C. (ed.). 1981a. Generative Studies on Creole Languages [Studies in Generative Grammar 6]. Dordrecht: Foris. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1981b. Halfway between Quechua and Spanish: The case for relexification. In Historicity and Variation in Creole Studies, A. Valdman & A. Highfield (eds), 52–78. Ann Arbor MI: Karoma.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(ed.). 2008. From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics [Studies in Language Companion Series 90]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Muysken, P. C. & Smith, N. S. H. (eds). 1986. Substrata Versus Universals in Creole Genesis: Papers from the Amsterdam Creole Workshop, April 1985 [Creole Language Library 1]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(eds). 2015. Surviving the Middle Passage: The West Africa-Surinam Sprachbund [Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs (TiLSM) 275]. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neba, A. N., Chibaka, E. F. & Atindogbé, G. 2006. Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE) as a tool for empowerment and national development. African Study Monographs 27: 39–61.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Newman, P. 1987. Hausa and the Chadic languages. In The World’s Major Languages, B. Comrie (ed.), 705–723. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ngefac, A. 2010. Linguistic choices in postcolonial multilingual Cameroon. Nordic Journal of African Studies 19(3): 149–164.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016. Sociolinguistic and Structural Aspects of Cameroon Creole English. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nkengasong, N. 2016. A Grammar of Cameroonian Pidgin. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nordén, A. H. 2016. Epistemic Modality in Ghanaian Pidgin English. MA thesis, University of Stockholm. <[URL]> (26 September 2019).
Ojarikre, A. 2013. Perspectives and problems of codifying Nigerian Pidgin English orthography. Developing Country Studies 3(12): 126–133.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Osei-Tutu, K. O. A. 2008. Exploring Meaning in Students’ P(SP). MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, Legon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016. Lexical borrowing in Ghanaian Student Pidgin (GSP) – The case of Akan loanwords and loan translations. In Celebrating Multiple Identities: Opting out of Neocolonial Monolinguism, Monoculturalism and Mono-identification in the Greater Caribbean, N. Faraclas, R. Severing, C. Weijer, E. Echteld, W. Rutgers & R. Dupey (eds), 47–54. Willemstad: University of Curaçao and Fundashon pa Planifikashon di Idioma.
Perrois, L. 1972. La statuaire Fang, Gabon. Paris: O.R.S.T.O.M.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schröder, A. 2003. Status, Functions, and Prospects of Pidgin English: An Empirical Approach to Language Dynamics in Cameroon. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, N. S. H. 2015. Ingredient X: The shared African lexical element in the English-lexifier Atlantic Creoles, and the theory of rapid creolization. In Surviving the Middle Passage: The West Africa-Surinam Sprachbund [Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs (TiLSM) 275], P. C. Muysken & N. S. H. Smith (eds), 67–106. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
The World Bank. 2018. Education statistics. World Bank Open Data, 2018. <[URL]> (4 April 2018).
UNESCO. 2018. Global Education Monitoring Report. 2017/8 GEM Report – Accountability in Education: Meeting Our Commitments, 2018. <[URL]> (4 April 2018).
United Nations. 2017. World population prospects: The 2017 revision, key findings and advance tables [Working Paper ESA/P/WP/248]. New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. <[URL]> (24 April 2020).
van Sluijs, R., van den Berg, M. C. & Muysken, P. C. 2016. Exploring genealogical blends: The Surinamese Creole cluster and the Virgin Island Dutch Creole cluster. Lingua 178: 84–103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vydrin, V. 2013. Bamana Reference Corpus (BRC). Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 95: 75–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wyse, A. J. G. 1991. The Krio of Sierra Leone: An Interpretive History. Washington DC: Howard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yakpo, K. 2009a. A Grammar of Pichi. PhD dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen. < > (27 March 2020).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009b. Complexity revisited: Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) and Spanish in contact. In Simplicity and Complexity in Creoles and Pidgins, N. G. Faraclas & T. Klein (eds), 183–215. London: Battlebridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010. Gramática del Pichi [Laboratorio de Recursos Orales 13]. Barcelona: Ceiba Ediciones.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2012a. Betwixt and between: Causatives in the English-lexicon creoles of West Africa and the Caribbean. In Analytical Causatives: From “Make” to “Laskma”, J. Leino & R. von Waldenfels (eds), 9–39. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2012b. Reiteration in Pichi: Forms, functions and areal-typological perspectives. In The Morphosyntax of Reiteration in Creole and Non-creole Languages [Creole Language Library 43], E. O. Aboh, N. S. H. Smith & A. Zribi-Hertz (eds), 251–284. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013a. Pichi. In The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures: English-based and Dutch-based Languages, S. Michaelis, P. Maurer, M. Haspelmath & M. Huber (eds), 1:194–205. Oxford: OUP. <[URL]> (2 March 2018).
2013b. Wayward daughter: Language contact in the emergence of Pichi (Equatorial Guinea). Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 34(2): 275–299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016a. O estatuto do pichi na Guiné Equatorial. PLATÔ (Revista Digital do Instituto Internacional da Língua Portuguesa), Glotopolítica na Guiné Equatorial 3(6): 20–40.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016b. “The only language we speak really well”. The English creoles of Equatorial Guinea and West Africa at the intersection of language ideologies and language policies. In Exploring Glottopolitical Dynamics in Africa: The Spanish Colonial Past and Beyond, S. Castillo-Rodríguez & L. Morgenthaler García (eds). Special issue of International Journal of the Sociology of Language 239: 211–233. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. ¿El nacimiento de una lengua afrohispana?: La influencia del español en el idioma criollo inglés de Guinea Ecuatorial. In Trans-afrohispanismos: Puentes culturales críticos entre África, Latinoamérica y España [Foro Hispánico 58], D. Odartey-Wellington (ed.), 243–259. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yakpo, K. & Muysken, P. C. (eds). 2017. Boundaries and Bridges: Language Contact in Multilingual Ecologies [Language Contact and Bilingualism 14]. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yankson, S. 2018. Language Contact and Change in Linguistically Heterogeneous Urban Communities. The Case of Akan in Accra. PhD dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Zarco, Mariano. 1938. Dialecto Inglés-Africano o Broken-English de La Colonia Española Del Golfo de Guinea. Turnhout, Belgium: H. Proost.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Akande, Akinmade Timothy
2025. West Africa, English‐Based Pidgins and Creoles in. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Yakpo, Kofi
2024. Lost siblings. In Predication in African Languages [Studies in Language Companion Series, 235], ► pp. 154 ff. DOI logo
Yakpo, Kofi
2024. The indigenization of Ghanaian Pidgin English. World Englishes 43:1 ► pp. 182 ff. DOI logo
Yakpo, Kofi
2024. West African Pidgin: World Language Against the Grain. Africa Spectrum 59:2 ► pp. 180 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue