Indo-European · ISO 639-3 pcm
Nigerian Pidgin Language Naija
Nigerian Pidgin is an Indo-European language spoken by about 48 million people in 1 country. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Nigerian Pidgin is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Nigerian Pidgin
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
- Coastal Nigerian Krio
- Nigerian-Ghanaian Krio
- Nigerian Pidgin
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Nigerian Pidgin language
Nigerian Pidgin (Naija) is spoken by about 48 million people, which makes it the 38th most spoken language in the world — just behind Hakka Chinese (48 million) and ahead of Levantine Arabic (44 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Nigerian-Ghanaian Krio group within the Germanic branch.
Where is Nigerian Pidgin spoken?
Nigerian Pidgin is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in Nigeria (50 million).
Nigerian Pidgin is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Nigerian Pidgin is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Ghanaian Pidgin English, Cameroon Pidgin, Krio, Jamaican Creole English, Trinidadian Creole English, English and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 pcm.
Frequently asked questions about Nigerian Pidgin
How many people speak Nigerian Pidgin?
Where is Nigerian Pidgin spoken?
What language family does Nigerian Pidgin belong to?
What is Nigerian Pidgin called in Nigerian Pidgin?
Is Nigerian Pidgin an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.