What it also does, is the common theme that runs through much of its grammar: it simplifies and beautifies. Pidgin English strictly enforces its own rule. In regular English subjects must agree with verbs in number. Many non-native speakers of English will recall early struggles with subject-verb agreement, especially in primary school and junior high school. Here are just five examples to prove the point. It is in all respects a language, even if not a very respected one. It can be analyzed, categorized and learned. It is a rank mutiny aboard the vessel that is the English language in Ghana, and it is taking no prisoners.Īnd yet I have always answered friends like Kwame the same way: Pidgin English is structured. To be fair, Pidgin English sounds like an all-out rebellion against the Queen herself.
But in terms of the latter, subjective perspectives set in, and most people expect at least some structure and predictability in a true language grammar and syntactical logic that can be analyzed, categorized and learned. In terms of the former, there is no question that it is. There is a kinship in it, and it is beautiful.īut is it a language? This question is not so much an anthropological one as it is a philosophical one. Various ethnicities and nationalities converse easily in this customized vernacular. It also simplifies language acquisition for non-native English speakers from Ghana and beyond. It liberates less educated people to engage with their more elite peers, and in that it is a great equalizer of the social classes, at least for the purposes of communication. Pidgin English is boldly spoken everywhere including such prohibited places, and by everyone including the prohibitors. It has the reputation of being low-class, the dialect of the undereducated it is banned in every public school and frowned upon by educators in general as a rampant saboteur of the English paradigm within which pretty much all of Ghana’s education occurs.Īt the same time, it is by no means a hiding language. It is often seen as a corruption of pristine diction that is not worth the epithet of an actual language. I love language, and Pidgin English is, for me, an enigma. I turned back to my coding, adjusted my seat and said to myself, “Actually it does.” “Ah, Agana, pidgin no get grammar oo,” he protested, with an air of finality that lingered after he left the room.
“I dey go search chow give we.” Kwame looked at me in astonishment. Despite his being visibly hungry and irritable that hot afternoon three years ago, I could not suppress the scrupulous grammarian in my head that was reaching out to grab him by the throat. “Chale, I dey go search chow give us,” my good friend Kwame said.
0 kommentar(er)
