A Tale of Many Tongues: Towards Conceptualising Nigerian Youth Languages

Abstract The Nigerian youth language phenomenon has often been labelled, albeit reductively, as Pidgin or Pidgin-based—to the exclusion of other varieties which co-constitute the ecology of youth argots in the country. Drawing on the notion of indexicality, this article presents a range of Pidgin and non-Pidgin exemplars and illuminates their linguistic as well as discursive strategies. Though ostensibly diverse and sphere-specific, they consist of syntax drawn from the informal varieties of existing languages and the insertion of mainly lexical features, including slang, neologism, borrowing, relexicalisation, and metaphorisation. Rather than labelling them, this article defines them as a cluster of linguistic (and paralinguistic) practices with indexical links to youthfulness, conviviality, in-groupness, camaraderie, etc., and draws attention to the changing demographics of their user communities.