A Pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out of a mixture of other languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongues. Pidgins have rudimentary grammars and restricted vocabulary, serving as auxiliary contact languages. They are improvised rather than learned natively.

Pidgins can develop to become creole languages. This requires the pidgin to be learned natively by children, who then generalize the features of the pidgin into a fully-formed, stabilized grammar (see Nicaraguan Sign Language). At this stage the language is no longer a pidgin, as it has acquired the full complexity of a human language, and becomes a creole. Often creoles can then replace the existing mix of languages to become the native language of the current community (such as Krio in Sierra Leone and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea). However, pidgins do not always become creoles—they can die out or become obsolete.

The concept originated in Europe among the merchants and traders in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages, who used Lingua Franca or Sabir. Another well-known pidgin is the Beach-la-Mar of the South Seas, based on English but incorporating Malay, Chinese, and Portuguese words. Bislama, as it is now called in Vanuatu, is fairly mutually intelligible with Tok Pisin.

Caribbean pidgin is the result of colonialism. As tropical islands were colonised their society was restructured, with a ruling minority of some European nation and a large mass of non-European laborers. The laborers, both natives and slaves, would often come from many different language groups and would need to communicate. This led to the development of pidgins.

The word is derived from the Chinese pronunciation of the English word business. Pidgin English was the name given to a Chinese-English-Portuguese pidgin used for commerce in Canton during the 18th and 19th centuries. Some scholars dispute this derivation of the word "pidgin", and suggest alternative etymologies, but no alternative has been deemed convincing enough to garner widespread support. In Canton, this contact language was called Canton English. See: Chinese English Pidgin

See also

• Chinook Jargon is a trade pidgin or creole language used in the Pacific Northwest.
• Babyish is a pidgin of Cantonese and English.
• Non-native pronunciations of English
• Trasianka is a Belarusian-Russian mix used by many rural dwellers in Belarus.

Recent Pidgins

• Russenorsk - combined Russian and Norwegian to create a mutually intelligible form of communication for Arctic fishermen.

Hawaiian Pidgin

Pidgin can also refer to Hawaiian Pidgin, which is not technically a "pidgin". Instead, it is a creole language and a dialect of English, and is widely spoken by residents of Hawai'i.

Nigerian "Pidgin"/"Broken English"

There is a dialect of English spoken as a kind of lingua franca across Nigeria that is referred to simply as "Pidgin" or as "Broken English" or "Brokan". It is not a creole in the sense that there are not "native" speakers, but children do learn it early. It is also technically not quite a pidgin as it is mainly spoken locally.

Its substrate is English with a sprinkling of Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo.

Saurashtrian pidgin

A language evolved in the community of people who migrated from the Saurashtra region of the Indian state of Gujarat to places like Madurai and Kumbakonam in Tamilnadu. Though it has a lot of loan words from Tamil mixed with Gujarati, it is believed that this has evolved into a full-fledged language in itself. See this book review^{[1] (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/br/2003/04/29/stories/2003042900120300.htm)} for details.

External Links

• Pidgin English - English Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.com/definition/Pidgin+English-english/) for the Nigerian dialect referred to simply as "Pidgin" or as "Broken English" or "Brokan".