The Expansion of West African Pidgin: Social and Linguistic Factors

West African Pidgin (“Pidgin”) is a group of related, mutually intelligible varieties that emerged from contact between English and African languages in coastal West Africa. Spoken by only a few thousand people two centuries ago, Pidgin currently has an estimated 140 million speakers in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, and The Gambia. This number is projected to grow to 400 million by 2100. During my residency, I plan to work on the bottom-up expansion of Pidgin, which has taken place without administrative intervention and official standardization. I will look at socio-economic factors, such as population growth, mobility, urbanization, informal economies, and cultural industries. Additionally, I will explore socio-linguistic factors, focusing on multilingualism and language change. The remarkable rise of Pidgin presents untapped opportunities for research on language evolution. It also has implications for economic development, business and trade, political participation, education, and administration in West Africa.