CIT offers Nigerian Pidgin interpreters and translators with legal, medical and specialty experience, including criminal and civil matters, employee meetings, engineering, patent cases, labor disputes, immigration and more.
Although based in Los Angeles, CIT offers comprehensive Nigerian Pidgin language services including interpretation, translation and transcription, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, worldwide. Our interpreters and translators are native speakers who have been screened, certified, have provided credentials, field tested, and kept up to date with developments in both English and the Nigerian Pidgin language through means such as lectures, conferences, and travel. CIT’s Nigerian Pidgin language interpreters and translators possess in depth knowledge of the Nigerian Pidgin language, as well as of the culture and history of the Nigerian Pidgin people, allowing them to provide informed and complete interpretation and translation.
Nigerian Pidgin, although a language group, is the lingua franca of Nigeria, spoken natively by approximately 30 million people. It is part of the Creole language family. Nigeria, a country located in Africa with over 162 milion people, is a nation with over 500 languages. Nigeria was first visited by European explorers and traders, particularly the Portuguese, in the 1400s. It is believed the Portuguese started trading with the indigenous people of the Niger Delta in 1469. They thus established ties with the kingdoms of the area and Portugal. Additionally, schools and churches were established and Christianity was taught in Portuguese. This was the basis for the creation of Naija, a Portuguese-based language group in the Niger Delta. Because the Niger Delta had a variety of people speaking several different languages such as Annang, Edo, Efik, Ibibio, Igbo, Ijaw, Isoko, Itsekiri and Isoko, many people learned the Portuguese based language for commonality.
After the Portuguese people had left the Niger Delta, the Dutch then came along and began trading for about fifty years. Next were the French and finally, the English arrived around the middle of the 17th century and took control of trading in the area. Initially, the English were most interested in trade. This soon evolved into an interest in religion, education and colonization. With these changes came changes to the langauges in the region. Soon after, English became a main language of the government and the Portuguese-based language group began to have more English. By the turn of the 20th century, Naija was now heavy with English words. When Nigeria got its independence from Britian in 1960, the English language had already gain such popularity. Even nowadays, English is spoken more than any other language in Nigeria.
In the last three or four decades, Naija is the first language of about 5 million people in Nigeria, while another 75 million use it as a second language in parts of Nigeria, Europe, America and other places in the world. Today, education is mostly taught in English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. However, Naija is spoken more predominantly in cities, with the police and military along with television, ads, popular and religious music and everyday business deals. Some refer to the language as Pidgin English or Broken English.
Nigerian Pidgin used to not be taken as a serious language. Although this is changing and it is, in fact, becoming more serious, there is not much literature written using this language.
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