Pidgin
The whole coast.
Pidgin is how Warri, Port Harcourt and Lagos talk to each other. Most of it is English words doing new jobs, held together by a handful of small words. Learn the small words first and the rest opens up.
The small words
- dey
- Being there, or doing something right now. Dem dey play: they are playing.
- don
- Already done. I don chop: I have eaten.
- con
- And then. He con say...
- sey
- That, after talk or hear. Him talk sey he dey come.
- na
- Is. That one na oyibo: that one is a foreigner.
- sha
- Colours the whole line. E good sha: it's good, anyway.
The voices for these words land here after the recording round.
Straight from Warri
- wetin dey shele
- What's happening.
- pipe low
- Bring your energy down.
- olofofo
- A gossip, same as amebo.
- gragra
- Strong headed.
- pompi
- Calm down.
- abobi
- Friend, same as padi.
Example sentences in the app come from the NaijaSynCor spoken corpus, shared under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0. Meanings written by Pidgin speakers.