he British Broadcasting Corporation on Monday launched BBC Pidgin as part of the biggest expansion of the World Service since the 1940s.
The BBC World Service already publishes in 28 languages around the world.
On Monday, it made a foray into unusual territory, launching a full-fledged news service delivered in Nigerian Pidgin, a largely oral languagespoken widely both in Nigeria and in countries across West and Central Africa.
“Whenever you talk to people about the BBC doing a Pidgin service, they think it’s a joke — Pidgin is a humorous language spoken across many borders, with many variations.
It’s a language we communicate and joke with,” said digital lead for BBC Africa Miriam Quansah when she, Solomon Mugera, Nairobi-based regional editor for BBC Africa, and I spoke ahead of Monday’s official launch.
“It’s spoken by so many people, but nobody ever thought an international broadcaster based in the U.K. would be prepared to offer news content in it.”
