Unu has also found its way to Jamaican patois, with the same meaning as in Nigerian Pidgin. For example, 'Una dey mad' in Nigerian Pidgin translates to, 'You people are crazy.' in English.

It is often used at the start or end of an intonated sentence or question: 'You are coming, right?' becomes 'Ṣebi you dey come?' Īnother example is the Igbo and the use of the word abi (another variant of the words ṣebi and ba), adding the word nna, also used at the beginning of some sentences, to show camaraderie: For example, 'Man, that test was very hard.' becomes 'Nna mehn, that test hard no be small.' Another Igbo word that has gotten precedence in pidgin is una, derived from the Igbo word unu which is equivalent to the English term 'you people'. For example, the Yorùbá people use the word ṣebi when speaking Pidgin.

Many of the 250 or more ethnic groups in Nigeria can converse in the language, though many speakers will utilize words from their native tongues. In 2017, BBC started BBC News Pidgin to provide services in Pidgin. In 2011, Google launched a search interface in Pidgin English. Pidgin breaks the communication barrier between different ethnic groups and it is widely spoken throughout Nigeria. Nigerian Pidgin is commonly used throughout the country, but it has not been granted official status. Īs an example, the English phrase, 'how are you?' would be 'how you dey?' in Pidgin. Variations of what this article refers to as 'Nigerian Pidgin' are also spoken across West and Central Africa, in countries such as Benin, Ghana, and Cameroon. In the 2010s, a common orthography was developed for Pidgin which has been gaining significant popularity in giving the language a harmonized writing system. It can be spoken as a pidgin, a creole, dialect or a decreolised acrolect by different speakers, who may switch between these forms depending on the social setting. The language is sometimes referred to as ' Pijin' or Broken (pronounced ' Brokun'). Nigerian Pidgin, also called Naijá or Naija, is an English-based creole language spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria.

Learn to speak pidgin