A pidgin language incorporates words from both parties, as well as new vocabulary that is unique to the pidgin. Pidgin languages facilitate communication where speakers of mutually unintelligible languages need to overcome the linguistic barriers that divide them. The pidgin definition, according to Merriam-Webster, is: “a simplified speech used for communication between people with different languages.” I’ll include some examples of pidgin, as well as taking a look at how pidgin language evolves. The terms are often – erroneously – used interchangeably, so I thought it was a topic worth exploring. I wrote recently about the origins of creoles and their use around the world, and that got me thinking about pidgin language. In this look at pidgin language, I’ll be answering all of these questions and more.

Think Progress » Bush’s Fluctuating Degree of Ability 2005Īnglo used to enroll them in informal classes to learn Fanagolo, a century-old, 200-word pidgin language that was created decades ago so that mining bosses could order illiterate miners to perform basic tasks.Ī Mile Down, Saving Platinum Miners' Lives 2010Ī pidgin is a simplified language used to help two groups with distinct languages communicate with each other.Ī pidgin is a mashup of two languages A and B used when a speaker of A and a speaker of B want/need to communicate.What is pidgin? Is pidgin a language? Is it a dialect? And what is the difference between pidgin and creole? It is difficult to defend an American president who speaks in pidgin-English. How Social Bookmarking can lead to the Semantic Web 2006 We gave them worm tablets and would ask them politely, in pidgin English, to collect their fecal matter in buckets for us.Ī pidgin is what you get when you throw people together who have no common language and gramatically its kind of a mess. The story of a Korean uprising told in pidgin poetry.Ĭarl Brandon Society API Heritage Month Book List 2008

told me that the key to pidgin is to pick out the English words and try to make sense of them. Life and sport in China Second Edition Oliver George Ready 'no got pidgin,' and _pidgin English_ simply means a workable knowledge of colloquial English as picked up by tradesmen, servants and coolies, in contradistinction to English as taught in the schools.

Pidgin language definition