In a massive development for the Nigerian movie industry, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences now considers Pidgin English as a foreign language.
The Chief Executive Officer of EbonyLife Films, Mo Abudu, facilitated the Academy’s acceptance of Pidgin English following representations to the International Features section.
Desirous of entering EbonyLife’s latest movie, ‘Òlòtūré’ for the International Feature Film category, Abudu opened discussions with the International Features section and was subsequently asked for a letter of justification regarding Nigerian Pidgin as a foreign language.
In a very detailed letter dated October 15 and sent to the Academy’s headquarters in California, USA, Abudu cited various authorities to make a strong case for Pidgin English used extensively in ‘Òlòtūré.’
She explained that “Nigeria is home to 200 million people from more than 250 ethnic groups who speak over 400 languages, including widely spoken Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. Having been thrown together by colonisation, these various peoples had to create a ‘lingua franca’ that allowed them to communicate mainly for trading purposes and to create diverse communities. Despite English being made the ‘official’ language of Nigeria by the British, Nigerians have continued to communicate within ethnic groups in their native languages and across groups using Nigerian Pidgin.
“Nigerian Pidgin can vary from place to place, with distinctive dialects in cities such as Warri, Sapele, Benin City, Port Harcourt, Lagos, Ajegunle and Onitsha. In some regions of Nigeria, such as the oil-rich Niger Delta, Pidgin is spoken by most people as their first language. Since being used first in colonial Nigeria, Pidgin has been adopted by other countries along the West African coast (Ghana, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon) and was spread to slave populations in Jamaica and Barbados, where elements of Igbo, Yoruba and Pidgin have been absorbed into the local patois.”
Abudu continued: “Nigerian Pidgin is a fully developed language with its own rich lexico-semantics and syntax, which have evolved like any other language through contact and modification. It reflects productivity, simplicity, acceptability and understanding among a broad spectrum of Nigerians, whose divergence transcends ethnic, religious and class boundaries.2 It has been synthesised from the historically major languages of Nigeria – Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Portuguese and English – and has become “a marker of identity and solidarity. It is an inter-ethnic code available to Nigerians, who have no other common language.”
The entrepreneur further underscored the importance and acceptance of Pidgin by stating that there’s now a BBC Pidgin service for West Africa. At the same time, several Nigerian radio stations broadcast exclusively in Nigerian Pidgin.
She also argued that “It is important not to categorise Nigerian Pidgin as ‘broken English’ or ‘Pidgin English’, as some casual observers do, without understanding that the rules, structure and cadence of Pidgin are very different. When English is poorly spoken by a Nigerian whose first or second language is not English, it does not resemble Pidgin in any way. It would probably be closer to English spoken poorly by a Japanese or French speaker. Well-educated, English-speaking Nigerians still use their Pidgin in conversation with each other, especially when a joke or emotional point needs to be made and standard English will not communicate it adequately. In such discussions, a keen listener would recognise words derived from all of Nigeria’s major languages and, perhaps, a few of the minor ones that reflect the speakers’ ethnic origin.”
And on the significance of the acceptance of Pidgin English to Nollywood, Abudu said: “as many other Nigerian films would benefit from the acceptance of Nigerian Pidgin, as a language, in the future. This would energise many of our filmmakers and infuse our industry with pride, and allow us to compete with our European and Asian colleagues on an equal footing. Without this consent, Nigerians would have to make films in Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa to be eligible, thereby relegating them to minority status within their own country and being unable to use the most widely spoken language in West Africa.”
Following her strong representation backed with the detailed letter, the International Features Section have said that Pidgin is now a foreign language and have communicated the same to the Nigerian Oscar Committee.
Recall that Nigeria’s first-ever Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film, Genevieve Nnaji’s ‘Lion Heart’ was disqualified by the Academy last year.It disclosed in a mail that the movie did not have “a predominantly non-English dialogue track”, a crucial eligibility requirement. The 95-minute film is mainly in English, with an 11-minute section in the Igbo language.
With the acceptance of Pidgin English as a foreign language, Nigerian filmmakers would be able to submit works in the language for the International Feature Film category of the Oscars.
