CREOLE

[Andy]

Any Creole speaker on this forum? Especially from Sierra Leone? I've got a soft spot for this language and will do anything to learn it?

"Na ou sai you de commot?"
" I dei commo Monrovia."

[sabresaurus]

LOL.  Andy, Creole's got many versions.  People in my country speak Creole. And I still have no idea what you've just written.

[Andy]

LOL.  Andy, Creole's got many versions.  People in my country speak Creole. And I still have no idea what you've just written.

That tells you  exactly how blind I am when it comes to this funny but useeful language. I dunno how many versions there are, I'm just interested in learning sth that is Creole. The stuff I wrote is sth I try to micmick from what I usually hear Sierra Leoneans say.

[sabresaurus]

Hahah...yeah, I don't know why people think it's funny. But then again most foreign languages are. The advantage of knowing Creole is that you get to understand French, but the French don't get to understand you, heehee...

[cyndy]

LOL Andy
I could teach u.We speak it even though we don't call it creole.We call it Pidgin.lol
Translation of what u just said is
Na ou sai u di commot? Where are u from?
I di commot monrovia?I am from Monrovia.

[pat_togo]

I think there is a difference btw Pidgin and Creole. Pidgin is English-based while creole has if I don't get it wrong some similarities with French or at least some words from French. Andy might have mistaken Pidgin for Creole I guess...

[sabresaurus]

LOL Andy
I could teach u.We speak it even though we don't call it creole.We call it Pidgin.lol
Translation of what u just said is
Na ou sai u di commot? Where are u from?
I di commot monrovia?I am from Monrovia.

Wow, that's really far from the Creole I know.

[Andy]

Andy might have mistaken Pidgin for Creole I guess...

Pidgin is actually a distorted form of the Standard English language; I can vouch for it for Liberians. That's why I said the form of Creole in Sierra Leone is the only one I've listened to. That's pure Creole; though a bit rusty due to my poor knowledge of the spoken form. Sabrina mentioned that there are several versions of Creole. I know that Liberians speak pidgin ("Liberian English"), as it's called.
Creole is sth different. If there's a Sierra Leonean on this forum he/she might give us a clearer picture.

[cyndy]

@ Pat
Pidgin is a combination of English,French and German (in the case of Cameroon).Came about as a result of our history.We had all these countries as colonial masters and so,our older folks had to come up with sth  close to the three languages instead of learning a new one all the time.It works really fine

[sabresaurus]

Interesting... So Cyndy, if I understand both English and French but not German, will I be able to understand at least half of Pidgin?

Another question: how is Pidgin pronounced?

[Andy]

Another question: how is Pidgin pronounced?

Try "pee jin"; notice the abscence of the "d": just a hint: you could turn to star radio, broadcasting in Monrovia for news in pidgin or simple english as they'd sometimes call it.