THE GHANAIAN-PIDGIN LANGUAGE

 


Modern Ghana has seen the need to have a common language which will bridge the language barrier among its people. Then English was accepted as the language to do that but most people were finding it difficult to learn the English Language. English is indeed the official language but then only about half of the Ghanaian population is able to speak English fluently.

The others will either understand it very well and they will not be able to fluently speak it, or they just do not understand it at all. This is a hindrance to the development of the nation Ghana since its inhabitants have difficulty communicating among themselves. This called for some selected local languages by the government to be taught in schools. They are the government sponsored languages that we had earlier learnt about. Yet, some Ghanaians due to certain perceptions were not even willing to learn the languages being taught in schools. There are numerous reasons to that but then a few of those reasons I gathered from a public poll are listed below:

1. They cannot abandon their language and learn the language of the other tribe. They feel they are giving prestige to other languages rather than theirs.  

2.  Others also perceived being literate in their local language is useless since it will not be of any benefit to them in the sense of moving abroad. They are of no use outside the borders of Ghana.

3. Most of the schools painted the local languages as an abomination to speak since “speaking them will make you “a savage”. In fact, students were over-tormented with lashes just for speaking their local languages (vernacular) in schools.

4. The Education policy for teaching local languages in Ghana is to teach in solely that local language or L1* of the community without taking into consideration non-speakers of that community’s L1.

This I experienced in Tamale when some language teachers taught Dagbanli in solely Dagbanli without ever speaking English. So I asked if all the pupils could speak or understand Dagbanli and about 35% of the class protested that they have no idea what goes on anytime it is Dagbanli class. I asked the teacher if he is teaching Dagbanli students or he was teaching everyone. Of course, he gave the obvious answer, everyone.

I continued if he was teaching everyone then, why does he not translate into English for the other students to understand after he is done speaking in Dagbanli. He claimed the Education policy forbids teaching native languages in English; without taking into consideration the non-speakers.

All this had gone a long way to cause more harm than good.

1.  Students under all this torture just drop out from school so as to be free in speaking their local languages.

2. Others still complete not being able to speak the English language and even fail most exams due to the hatred they develop for the language as a result of the beatings.

3. The Ghanaian language teaching syllabus or policy has loop holes which might not have been fixed yet.

So the language barrier was fairly minimized since the few who can speak the English and at least local languages acted as interpreters for their family and for other elderly people. But that soon changed around the year 2004 when Ghanaians were embracing the Nigerian culture through movies and saw the need to adopt their form of English, the Pidgin which they call PIJIN.

Ghanaians after continuous interaction with the Nigerian Pidgin gradually developed their own Pidgin. Ghanaians started by speaking the Nigerian Pidgin but with time, they developed their own dialect or version of the Pidgin which came to be known as Piji. The Piji is intelligible* with the Nigerian Pidgin but partially related to it presently.

It combines Ga, Twi and the English. This was because the Ghanaians migrated totally from the way the Nigerians speak it to their own style. Ghanaians got the idea from the Nigerian Pidgin thus, they understand that completely but the Nigerians normally struggle to understand the Ghanaians due to the Ghanaian Pidgin vocabulary shift.

Currently the Piji is accepted all over Ghana but it has not been standardized yet. Every day, new words are being developed to move it far away from English thus, it may take about some few years to be standardized and attain the status of a Language. But currently, it is in a dialectic state that is to say it is a Pidgin* currently. If it finally gets standardized, it will then be a creole.

The people of Ghana speak the dialectic Piji fluently unlike the English. It is now breaking the language barrier of the people and it has come to stay. Piji is a half toned* (like the accent of English, German etc.) dialect. Although Akan is Vowel toned* and Ga is Direct toned*, they attain half-tone in the Piji language. Let us first look at the phonetic structure between Piji and Nigerian Pidgin English.

PIJI

PIJIN-NIGERIA

ENGLISH

Adey kam oo

Adey kam now

I am coming

Adey go shut nibis

Adey go sell things

I am going to sell

Ugo du make atoo/gbee u hier

U go do maabeat u for here

Do not let me beat you

Bis am av mi

Ask am giv me

Ask him for me

Widey chop oo

Wedey shop

We are eating

Weney nibis edey bis u?

Wish kan tin edey ask u?

What is he/she asking you?

 

The comparison above I hope will give you a feel of the Piji if you are not Ghanaian. Currently, some part of the Piji is standardized which we are going to take a look; the pronoun system, the conjugation system and the sentence structure.

Piji will one day be standardized. A standardized Pidgin is accepted as a national language like the Jamaicans, Sierra-Leoneans have done. A standardized Pidgin is called a Creole.

 

THE PRONOUN SYSTEM: The Piji uses the pronominal system of English but the pronunciation and spellings are not the same, yet they could be easily read and be well understood even if a foreigner with little or no idea about Piji is reading it or he is interacting with a Ghanaian Piji speaker. Below is the list of pronoun pronouns.

My spelling method reflects the pronunciation or what is also known as “pronounce what you see” way of spelling and not as in the English Language.

SUBJECT

OBJECT

 

A

Mi

1st Person Singular

U (Yu)

U (Yu)

2nd Person Singular

I (E)

Am

3rd Person Singular

Wi

Wi

1st Person Plural

U (Yu)

U (Yu)

2nd Person Plural

Dem

Dem

3rd Person Plural

 

THE CONJUGATION

 In Piji, conjugation is very simple. There is nothing like subject verb agreement as in “I am, you are, he is, etc.” Also the verbs in their infinitive states are the same as in the past, future etc. The conjugations are what we shall call in English the subjunctive mood. There is no indicative mood whatsoever.

There is only one irregular verb “bi” which is the same as the English “To be.” The verb “Bi” has a different present and continuous conjugation. Let us look at it below.

 

RYDIS(PRESENT)

 DE CONTINIOS

  PAS(PAST)

PAS CONTINIOS 

Abi (I am)

Adey (I am)

Na abi (I was)

(Na) adey (I am)

Ubi

Udey

Na ubi

(Na) udey

Ebi

Edey

Na ebi

(Na) edey

Wibi

Widey

Na wibi

(Na) widey

Ubi

Udey

Na ubi

(Na) udey

Dembi

Demdey

Na dembi

(Na) demdey

 

 FIUCHA (FUTURE)

FIUCHA CONTINIOS

DE PERFET

 Ago bi (I will be)

 Ago dey (I will be)

Av bin (I have been)

Ugo bi

Ugo dey

Uv bin

Ego bi

Ego dey

E az bin

Wigo bi

Wigo dey

Wiv bin

Ugo bi

Ugo dey

Uv bin

Demgo bi

Demgo dey

Dev bin

 

THE SENTENCE STRUCTURE

The sentence structure in Piji is quite similar to English but it retains a very simple grammatical form which non-Piji speakers can easily pick up and start speaking.

The pattern is pronoun + conjugate of “bi” (future, past etc.) + verb + object. That is for both positive and negative. For you to know, the continuous of any verb in Piji uses “dey”. For instance, widey go (we are going), demdey choo (they are eating), etc. so it will be safe for you to know the verbs.

Now to say for instance “I am typing the contents of KNOW GHANA BETTER” it will be “Adey taip de nibis wey ego dey for KNOW GHANA BETTER inners.”

Negatives: for negative sentences in the Piji language, it is formed just by bringing “no” attached to the verb. This form is the same irrespective of future tenses, present, past or whatsoever. Here are some examples.

1. Ano go gali go skul agen – I will not walk to school again/any longer/anymore

2. Eno bi de person (per –sorhn) wey ewan fait plas u? – Is he not the person who wanted to fight you?

3. Eno dey tron pass notin hier – it is not stonger than anything here

Know that “Dey” can also mean “to stay.” 

My name is Huniah Tetteh. I am a self-taught linguist and African cultural/Ghanaian cultural activist. I aim to promote the learning of Ghanaian languages, especially those that I am good at. The Ga-Dangme languages, the Guan languages and the Akan languages. It is my aim to Create a very comprehensive course for the study of the Ga, Dangme and Guan languages using YouTube mainly as a tool Write enough books in Ghanaian languages and make them accessible since Ghanaian languages do not have enough learning materials Get my brand international and use the influence to market Ghanaian languages Be able to encourage the learning of Ghanaian languages among Ghanaians and even be able to create businesses that would be centred around Ghanaian languages For 3 years, I have come far and am glad about the level I have attained. People also reach out to me for tourism services due to the fact that many companies overprice their services. I have considered the fact that I am still learning and travelling with someone who wishes to know a new place is a plus for me, so - I do not price the tourist any amount rather the tourist pays my transportation to the place of visit

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