NIGERIAN ENGLISH-BASED PIDGIN (NAIJA) ORTHOGRAPHY The name Naija was adopted at the Conference on Nigerian Pidgin, University

of Ibadan held in July 2009; following the resolution that what hitherto was referred to as Nigerian Pidgin is no longer a pidgin because it has creolized in some parts of the country; its functions have surpassed the functions of a pidgin; and the term pidgin has to encourage derogatory connotations associated with it. Historically, Naija (previously known as Nigerian Pidgin) is a language that originated from the 15th century trade contact between the peoples of the Niger Delta and Europeans in the coastal areas of the Niger Delta. Attempts to write the language goes back to the late 18th century. The history of writing the language shows that different people have at different times adopted different ways of writing the language. This has resulted in numerous orthographies, without a single acceptable way of writing the language. Naija which developed as a contact language, and now as a Creole, is long overdue for the standardisation of its orthography and vocabulary to empower its speakers with the benefits that accrue to developed languages. The development is evidenced by the increasing use of Naija in all practical spheres of life including music, literature, drama, information dissemination (by government and corporate organizations), media, and religion. An orthography is a symbolic representation of a language and not the transcription of an oral message, in adopting a standard orthography for Naija, the central question the Naija Langwej Akedemi (NLA an offspring of the July 2009 Conference on Naija) had to deal with was not whether the orthography is faithful to oral productions in the language, but whether as an instrument, it is adequate to convey the nature of the message. Thus, in devising the guidelines and rules for Standard Naija Orthography, I sought for an orthography that would (i) Be consistent, (ii) Reduce ambiguity, (iii) Be ergonomic or easy to use. Orthographic Representation The general principle I adopted is that the orthography of Naija should be phonetically based. That is, words should be spelled and written as pronounced according to the sound patterns of Naija. And that the orthography should be based on common core features of Naija rather than on a particular regional or social dialect of the language. Guided by the principles of simplicity, familiarity and harmonization, I adopted the use of diagraphs and diacritics to represent sounds that are not in the Roman alphabet such as ch, gb, sh, kp, zh,

similar to those used in the alphabets of many Naija substrate languages like Edo, Itsekiri, Urhobo e.t.c. Words borrowed from English or other languages should be written to fit Naijas sound patterns and syllable structure. For simplicity and ease of reading, minimal tone marking shall be employed in lexical/grammatical constructions where meaning is not clear from the context. Naija Alphabets Standard Naija Orthography has a total of 28 alphabets, made up of 23 single letters and 5 digraphs for writing the language. They are: a, b, ch, d, e, f, g, gb, h, i, j, k, kp, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, sh, t, u, v, w, y, z, zh. And these letters and diagraphs directly correspond with the sounds of the language. It is important to note at this point that while SNO is designated for common everyday writing in Naija, the NLA has also adopted a Phonological Transcription (PT) system that is suitable for use in scientific publications (where phonological accuracy is paramount, using sub-dots or phonetic symbols to mark the +/- ATR vowels). Both systems shall operate by the same set of general guidelines and spelling rules and would only vary slightly in +/- ATR vowel features. See the following table for details.
S/N IPA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [a] [b] [ ] [d] [e] [] [f] A B Ch D E F f g gb h i PT a b ch d e SNO Example Akada Buk Gloss Educated book

chukuchuku thorns Dodo Egen Eg Faya Gragra gbagbati Hama Insaid fried ripe plantain again egg fire hastiness troublesome hammer inside

[g] [] G [ ] Gb H I

10 [h] 11 [i]

S/N IPA 12 [ ] 13 [k] 14 [ ] 15 [l] 16 [m] 17 [n] 18 [o] 19 [] 20 [p] J K Kp L M N O P

PT j k kp l m n o

SNO

Example Juju kainkain kpangolo Lait Mama Nak ogogoro potopoto charm

Gloss

local gin metal container light mother to hit/knock gin muddiness child wrapper soup shake turkey you (plural) video walk buttocks metal roofing sheet measure

p r s sh t u v w y z zh

Pikin Rapa Sup Shek tolotolo Una Video Waka Yansh Zink mezho

21 [r] [] r 22 [s] 23 [] 24 [t] 25 [u] 26 [v] 27 [w] S Sh T U V W

28 [ j ][ ] Y 29 [z] 30 [] Z Zh

30 alphabets 28 alphabets

Word Division Word formation processes in Naija include affixation, compounding, reduplication, and intensification. Affixation In affixation, an affix and its root should be written as a single word. wok (work) woka (worker) smok (smoke) smoka (smoker)

Compounds Compound words made up of words of two different syntactic categories (where one word modifies the other) should be hyphenated. strong-hed (stubborn) opun-ai (worldliness) baik-man (bike rider) bush-mit (wild meat) chop-moni (feeding allowance) akara-wuman (woman who sells akara) Reduplication In reduplication (including ideophones), where the same item (bound morpheme) is repeated to form a new word, the items should written together as a word. potopoto (muddiness) sansan (sand) moimoi (bean pie) chukuchuku (thorns) yamayama (rubbish) krokro (rashes, boils) Intensification In intensification, where the same item (free morpheme) is reduplicated to intensify the meaning of the other, the items should be written as separate words. bad bad (extremely bad/good) bai bai (always buying) koret koret (extremely good) chopi chopi (always eating) wel wel (extremely well) krai krai (always crying)

Marking Tones in Naija Naija is a tone language with two tones: high and low. In Naija there are over a dozen tone-based minimal pairs. Tones can be marked in Naija using tone diacritics. Based on the principle of minimal tone marking, considering the low tones as the common tone in Naija, we can then indicate the high tones () in the orthography. baba (father, old man, master) de (PROGRESSIVE marker) bba (a barber) d (is/are, day, stay) Naija (Niger) fo (preposition) Naij (Nigeria, Nigerian Pidgin) f (four) fada (catholic priest) go (FUTURE marker) fda (father, master) g (to go) Punctuation and Plural Marking Punctuation As applicable in other languages, such regular punctuation marks as full stops, commas, colons, semi-colons, question marks and other punctuation marks shall be regularly and consistently used in Naija to clarify meaning by indicating separation or grammatically grouping of words into phrases, clauses and sentences. Plural Marking Naija does not always mark plural in the same way. Many words that have their origin in English, in educated Naija speech still retain their foreign plural marking. The word and its plural marker should be written as a single word. 1. Di wimen we kom tode se dem go kom tumoro (The women who came today said they would come tomorrow.) 2. Di bois we dem kach, polis tok se dem bi tif (The boys that were caught, the police said they were thieves.) But where plural is marked by the traditional use of dem in Naij, the plural marker dem should be hyphenated to the word for which it marks plural. 1. Di lori draiva-dem na dem blok rod (It is the lorry drivers who blocked the road.) 2. Di pikin-dem se dem neva chop (The children said they have not eaten.)

Writing emphatic possessive constructions Similarly, in emphatic possessive constructions in Naija, im which is normally used as the 3rd person singular, can also be used alongside the noun to indicate possessiveness. Grammatically im as a possessive marker is different from im as pronoun. So, we can mark this feature by hyphenating the emphatic possessive marker to the noun for which it indicates possessiveness. 1. Jon-im pikin kom fo wi haus (Johns child came to our house.) 2. Meri-im mama d fo ospitul (Marys mother is in the hospital.) However, it would be unnecessary to hyphenate verb-object forms like kil am, chop am, even when they are phonologically linked in connected speech. General spelling rules for Naija 1. Naija has 28 consonant and vowel letters of the alphabet which should be used to spell and write Naija: a, b, ch, d, e, f, g, gb, h, i, j, k, kp, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, sh, t, u, v, w, y, z, zh 2. For consistency and uniformity of orthography, all words should be written in the same way wherever they appear in a text or whatever the phonological inclination or dialectal variety of the speaker. 3. Single vowel letters (e.g. a, i, u) should be regularly and consistently used to represent corresponding single vowel phonemes (e.g. /a/, /i/, /u/) in Naija. 4. Single consonant letters (e.g. p, b, t, d) should be regularly and consistently used to represent corresponding single consonant phonemes (eg. /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/) in Naija. 5. Vowel length is not distinctive in Naija, but where there are co-occurring vowels or emphatic pronunciation of vowels, the affected sounds should be written in the applicable vowel digraphs. g. kol am sotee (I called for him/her for a very long time). 6. Consonant digraphs or two successive consonant letters (e.g. gb, ch, sh) should be regularly and consistently used to represent corresponding consonant phonemes as the palatal, palato-aveolar and labio-velar sounds (e.g. /gb/, /t/, //) in Naija. 7. Proper nouns should be spelt like other Naija words. Eg. Jizos (Jesus), Riva Naija (River Niger), Oktoba (October), Legos (Lagos), Wori (Warri), Yuganda (Uganda), Roshia (Russia). 8. Naija is a tone language and tone marks should be used to indicate the tonally significant words. Since the low tones are common in Naija, only the high tones should be marked in tonally significant words. 9. For convenience of writing and typing in Naija both [e] and [] shall be written as e, while [o] and [] should be written as o.

10.In affixation, an affix (bound morpheme) and its root (free morpheme) should be written as a single word. Eg. wok/woka, boi/bois etc. 11.In reduplication, where the same item (bound morpheme) is repeated to form a new word, the items should be written together as a word. Eg. krokro, potopoto etc. 12.In compounding, where the compound is made up of words of two different syntactic categories (where one word modifies the other), the compound word should be hyphenated. Eg. akara-wuman, strong-hed etc. 13.In intensification, where the same item (free morpheme) is reduplicated to intensify the meaning of the other, the items should be written as separate words. Eg. wel wel, bad bad etc.