The service will bring language diversity to the news and current affairs that west and central African audiences receive, where Pidgin is one of the most widely-spoken languages.
Adverts, radio stations, films and music are already produced in Pidgin, but news organisations have traditionally shunned it.
West African Pidgin English was used as a simple trade language between Europeans and Africans during the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th and 18th centuries. It became a mix of English and local languages, which is why it's often offensively referred to as broken English.
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Despite its popularity, people speak Pidgin with varying levels of fluency. And, as it is not studied in schools, it doesn't exist in a standardised written form. Because Pidgin is seen as an informal language, there is sometimes a stigma around speaking it, which Quansah thinks the new service is helping to break.
"There is a stereotype in some parts of the continent about being honest that Pidgin is your first language; people prefer if you speak English. In Nigeria however, people are very proud of speaking Pidgin," says Quansah, whose own Ghanian mother was skeptical about the project. "West African parents don't see Pidgin as a serious language, so they were stunned to find out the BBC were doing this. They get it now that they see so many people consume and live this language."
The decision to make this a digital only service was based on the fact that African people prefer to read content on their mobile phones. "We have always wanted to be able to offer relevant content to a younger audience and to an audience that is under-represented in the media landscape across Africa," Quansah says. "Being digital only and using the languages we are now going into enables us to offer important news and current affairs to audiences we may not have reached before."
Although Pidgin is spoken in different forms across Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, there are a lot of words that unify them all. Quansah says the World Service team are "remarkably and pleasantly surprised" by the amount of text content they have been able to produce, but that BBC Pidgin’s long-term success will be in a visual form, including video and data journalism. "If we are telling stories that can touch an audience in Sierra Leone, Benin, Ghana or Nigeria then we are doing our jobs," she adds.
Pidgin will soon be joined by 11 more new services in Africa and Asia, as part of the World Service's biggest expansion since the 1940s, thanks to a 2016 funding boost from the UK government.
BBC Pidgin will provide a mix of local, regional and international news current affairs and analysis. The production hub is based in Lagos, the commercial capital, but reporters in Ghana, Cameroon and elsewhere in Nigeria will also be gathering local news.
Other new languages that will be offered by the BBC World Service include Korean, Gujarati, Telegu, Marathi and Punjabi for India and Amharic and Oromo for Ethiopia and Tigrinya for Eritrea.
Why not learn some Pidgin?
Na you sabi: That’s your business, I’ll leave you to it
Wahala Dey: We have a problem
I no fit shout: I don’t want to be stressed, I can’t be bothered
Na so e be: It is what it is
Wetin dey happen?: What’s happening, what’s going on
No wahala: No problem
How far na?: How are you? How is it?
How body?: How are you doing, how is your health
Yawa don gas: There’s trouble
Nawa oh!: I can’t believe it!
You too much: When you look good or do something great
Notin do you: You are on point