Pidgin, Nigerian

Conjugate Verbs

Facts

  • Language: Pidgin, Nigerian
  • Alternate names: Broken English, Brokin, Brokun, Naija, Naijá, Nigerian Creole English, Nigerian Pidgin English
  • Language code: pcm
  • Language family: Indo-European, Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, North Sea Germanic, Anglo-Frisian, Anglic, Later Anglic, Middle-Modern English, Macro-English, Guinea Coast Creole English, West African Creole English, Nigeria-Cameroon Creole English
  • Creole language
  • Number of speakers: 120,000,000 including L1 and L2 speakers.
  • Script: Latin script

More information:

Introduction

Nigerian Pidgin is an English-based creole language spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria. The language is sometimes referred to as "Pijin" or Broken. It can be spoken as a pidgin, a creole, slang or a decreolised acrolect by different speakers, who may switch between these forms depending on the social setting. A common orthography has been developed for Pidgin which has been gaining significant popularity in giving the language a harmonized writing system.

The Pidgin, Nigerian Verb

All verbs are regular and don't inflect, except these three:

Time Adverbs for Tense

Verbs don't inflect in aspect, mood, tense, or person. Instead adverbs are used to denote tense, aspect, and mood. The following table shows adverbs applied to form tenses:
TenseAdverbExample
Neutral aspect, past-chop
Neutral aspect, futuregogo chop
Imperfective aspect, presentdede chop
Imperfective aspect, pastdede chop
Imperfective aspect, futurego dego de chop
Perfective aspect, inchoative, presentdon dedon de chop
Perfective aspect, inchoative, pastdon dedon de chop
Perfective aspect, inchoative, futurego don dego don de chop
Perfective aspect, terminative, presentdondon chop
Perfective aspect, terminative, pastdondon chop
Perfective aspect, terminative, futurego dongo don chop

Verblist