Why Is the BBC News Site Using Pidgin English, a Dialect Tainted by Racism?

What exactly does the
BBC
What does it think it’s doing? Why should license fee payers have to cover the costs for a news website written in West African Pidgin — a language that originated as a simplified version of English and wasn’t meant to be used in writing?

Astonishingly, the World Service now runs a full Pidgin version of the BBC news site, complete with online stories and headlines transcribed into what was once known as Guinea Coast Creole.

The outcomes can end up being absurd. Pidgin refers to a colloquial dialect characterized by a restricted lexicon and basic grammatical rules, commonly used in informal settings. This vernacular lacks the complexity needed for covering news effectively; hence, numerous headlines scarcely vary from conventional English, often differing only slightly in spelling.

‘Top Gun actor
Val Kilmer
pass away at the age of 65′ requires no translation. Neither does ‘Why’.
Prince Harry
They left the Sentebale charity he set up in honor of Diana. Of course, ‘di’ is a phonetic rendering of ‘the’, and ‘wey e’ is ‘which he’.

Others may be a bit more confusing, but you’ll grasp the main idea. ‘Wetin
Putin
“Tok way make Trump vex” announces a report on the
Ukraine
conflict, shedding light on what Putin said to upset Trump.

‘British boarding schools are set to reopen soon.’
Nigeria
‘, as we learn — indicating that the schools are eager to draw in West African students.

A number of the translations are utterly hilarious. The entertainment news section is titled ‘Jollificate,’ intended to mean ‘to make cheerful’ — somewhat unsuitable for a page featuring reports on celebrity fatalities, legal proceedings, and conflicts, including headlines like, ‘Five Tins We Know About.’
Gene Hackman
and im wife death’.

And indeed, I grasp Pidgin quite easily. Having grown up in Ghana, I was regularly exposed to it. Within a large area featuring numerous indigenous dialects mingling with official state languages, it serves as an effective means for individuals to communicate, regardless of their origin.

Approximately 75 million individuals in Nigeria can comprehend it; however, this does not render it suitable for use by the BBC News.

In Ghana, English serves as the official language, although numerous individuals additionally converse in Twi, Ewe, Fante, or Ga.

It’s also typical to come across Hausa and occasionally even Yoruba, which originates from neighboring Nigeria. That covers only a small number of languages present.

It comes as no surprise that British sailors helped foster a simplified version of English vocabulary and grammar, which then mixed with numerous African words, leading to a blend.

It was never meant to be anything more than spoken, hence it doesn’t have strict guidelines or spelling conventions. You can’t even select it as an option.
Google
Translate.

The pronunciation also has a clear African influence, which it shares with West Indian Patois.

At the play area, we occasionally used Pidgin just for kicks. However, I would never consider employing it at home. It’s somewhat rough around the edges and completely lacking in manners—similar to cursing in front of mom and dad. While everyone knows how to use it, there’s an appropriate moment and setting for it.

And similar to cursing, it’s considered rather unrefined for women too. You’ll most often hear groups of young men using Pidgin slang when they’re together without their girlfriends present.

For instance, you would never hear the President of Nigeria deliver a speech in Pidgin, nor would they address anyone using that language.

As I’ve mentioned before, this language carries a dark past. It developed during the peak of the slave trade in the 1700s and 1800s as a means for British merchants to communicate with African traders and chieftains—communications that frequently revolved around the exchange of millions of lives through buying and selling people.

Only an individual who completely missed the essence of it would attempt to make it comprehensible. The one undertaking this task is none other than the BBC World Service.

Their Pidgin service was introduced eight years back with significant funding, as part of a £289 million investment for the BBC’s international growth. Despite the announcement earlier this year about cutting 130 positions within the World Service to save £6 million annually, the news website is anticipated to stay accessible online.

The significant worth of the World Service lies in the international impact it provides for Britain.

Many individuals in West Africa depend on this source for impartial and rigorously verified information. The service offers content in Yoruba and Igbo, along with various other languages throughout the continent like Amharic and Afaan Oromo.
Ethiopia
, and Tigrinya in Eritrea.

These services should be preserved instead of Pidgin. Headlines like “17 facts you need to know before the Oscars” come off as somewhat racist, as if African viewers wouldn’t comprehend “before the Oscars.”

To grasp just how condescending this seems, picture a news site penned in the Geordie accent: “Eh brrav, disn’t see tha comin’! Ant an’ Dec huv scooped yet another accolade. Reckon this must be some sort o’ prank, yeah?”

A person who was born and raised in Newcastle would still need to say those words silently to understand them. Dialect works best when spoken rather than written. When put down on paper, it can come across as sarcastic.

The BBC is often regarded internationally as the final stronghold of what many consider true Received Pronunciation.

That reputation is weakened by the BBC World Service’s rather odd choice to consider Pidgin as equally important.

If another nation were faced with this, they’d be shocked. Consider how offended the French would feel if the BBC put out an English-language site filled with Francophone slang for their expatriates.

In Provence. It’s better to find humor in such situations rather than take offense. A headline from last month had me roaring with laughter: ‘Muslim
transgender
A TikToker was sentenced to prison after they told Jesus to go cut their hair.

The narrative continues by describing how Ratu Thalisa, an Indonesian transgender woman from Sumatra, was broadcasting a live video chat with her supporters when a male viewer recommended she have a haircut. Offended, Thalisa responded that if she required a haircut, then Jesus would also need one.

The outcome was a prison term of two years and ten months for disrupting public order and religious harmony. According to the report, ‘the court ruling came after several Christian organizations filed police complaints against Ms Thalisa for blasphemy.’ She was deemed guilty of fostering hatred under a contentious online hate speech legislation.

That last line reveals how ridiculous it is to ‘translate’ complex English into Pidgin. It has no equivalents for words such as ‘online’, ‘hate-speech’, or even ‘controversial’.

Similarly questionable are the spellings enforced by the BBC. There’s no justification for writing ‘continue’ as ‘kontinu’, implying that a Pidgin speaker might struggle to identify the proper spelling.

This is a standardised version developed by the BBC out of self-congratulatory virtue signalling. If individuals who genuinely use Pidgin had desired a standardised format, they would have likely initiated such an effort locally rather than leaving it to the BBC.

They wouldn’t have had to refer to the World Service, an institution located in
London
If the BBC had paused for thought, they might have recognised how colonialist their approach appeared.

However, as usual, Auntie believes she knows best – which is what she thinks anyway.

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