Nigerian Pidgin Among New Languages Reaching BBC World Service Listeners05:56
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March 13, 2018Updated Mar 19, 2018 11:15 AM
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British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) presenter Princess Igho Williams gets ready to broadcast in Pidgin in Lagos, on Aug. 18, 2017. In August 2017, the British media giant launched an online portal entirely in Pidgin, with text news, features and podcasts. Pidgin takes inspiration from Portuguese, the first European language to reach Nigeria's shores, English, the enduring colonial-era language, as well as Jamaican patois imported by former slaves returning to the continent. The language has shifted and evolved uninterrupted since its inception. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)MoreCloseclosemore
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) presenter Princess Igho Williams gets ready to broadcast in Pidgin in Lagos, on Aug. 18, 2017. In August 2017, the British media giant launched an online portal entirely in Pidgin, with text news, features and podcasts. Pidgin takes inspiration from Portuguese, the first European language to reach Nigeria's shores, English, the enduring colonial-era language, as well as Jamaican patois imported by former slaves returning to the continent. The language has shifted and evolved uninterrupted since its inception. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)

The BBC World Service is undergoing its largest expansion since 1941, adding news in 10 new languages in Africa and Asia. Among them Amharic, Tigrinya, Oromo and West African Pidgin.

Here & Now's Robin Young checks in with Adejuwon Soyinka (@adejuwonsoyinka), editor of BBC Pidgin, about the language, its history and the new service's instant popularity.

This segment aired on March 19, 2018.

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