BBC News Pidgin is an online news service in
West African Pidgin English that was launched by the
BBC World Service in 2017.
It is based in
Lagos
Lagos ( ; ), or Lagos City, is a large metropolitan city in southwestern Nigeria. With an upper population estimated above 21 million dwellers, it is the largest city in Nigeria, the most populous urban area on the African continent, and on ...
, Nigeria.
Pidgin, first used by British and
African slavers to facilitate the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...
in the late 17th century, has become one of the most widely spoken languages in West Africa, with up to 75 million speakers in Nigeria alone. However, it does not have a standard written form.
In turn, the BBC developed a "standardised" form of Pidgin aiming to serve all West African speakers which has certain traits not found in other forms, such as increased usage of inflections.
References
External links
* (in West African Pidgin English)
BBC News channels
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