I used to think all Africans spoke pidgin English - Simi

Singer Simi [Instagram/Symplysimi]

She says that even her daughter speaks pidgin English.

Nigerian singer Simi has opened up about a culture shock she experienced in Kenya when she found out that pidgin English wasn't spoken by all Africans.

The singer appeared as a guest on the recent episode of the 90's Baby Show, where she highlighted the previous misconception she had about pidgin English, a form of broken English commonly spoken by Nigerians.

Narrating her experience from a previous visit to Kenya, she said, "I went to Kenya years ago, and we were supposed to do a remix of my song with a Kenyan artist, and then there is a lot of pidgin in the song. They asked me to write my lyrics down and then ask, 'Can you translate?' and I go, 'What the fuck do you mean translate? It's English. It's pidgin, but it's English.'"

Simi described that experience as a culture shock because, at the time, she assumed that pidgin English was generally spoken in Africa.

"Before then, I had thought that everybody in Africa could speak pidgin the way we speak pidgin, so that was a culture shock for me. I thought these were our people; are we not the same?" Simi asked.

She also revealed that her 4-year-old daughter Adejare also speaks a little pidgin because she and her husband, Adekunle Gold, speak it at home.

"My daughter even started speaking pidgin by herself because we speak it around her, to our friends. So sometimes she would be like, 'Wetin you do o' and I love that because you need to have a gossip language around people," Simi said.

See the full interview below:



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