Saturday, March 15, 2014

Ambassador speaks Pidgin!

 

Well done, Ambassador Entwistle, for learning and speaking Pidgin on air!

But shame on NPR for calling Pidgin “broken English.”  Pidgin shares much of its lexicon with Standard English, but is a separate language in its own right, with its own grammatical structure and syntax.  While it is a first language for many in West and Central Africa, it continues to be disparaged and its use discouraged in schools, disenfranchising many from more than a basic level of of literacy and education.  Comments such as the one mentioned only serve to reinforce ideas of a hierarchy of language and the discrimination that attends such perspective.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/03/05/286257776/u-s-ambassador-speaks-pidgin-english-nigerians-love-it