All You Need to Know About PIDGIN and CREOLE

Pidgin and creole are both the result of a mixture of two or more language. Although similar, pidglin and creole are different types of language with their own distinct characteristics.

 1. PIDGIN

A pidgin is a language which has no native speakers. Pidgins develop as a means of communication between people who do not have a common language. Pidgins seem particularly likely to arise when two groups with different languages are communicating in a situation where there is also a third dominant language.

Initially, then, pidgins develop with a narrow range of functions. Those who use them speak other languages, so the pidgin is an addition to their linguistic repertoire used for a specific purpose, such as trade or perhaps administration.

In terms of the dimensions, pidgins are used almost exclusively for referential rather than affective functions. Consequently, the structure of a pidgin is generally no more complicated than it needs to be to express these functions.

Pidgin languages are created from the combined efforts of people who speak different languages. All languages involved may contribute to the sounds, the vocabulary and the grammatical features, but to different extents, and some additional features may emerge which are unique to the new variety.

Nevertheless, it has been found that when one group speaks a prestigious world language and the other groups use local vernaculars, the prestige language tends to supply more of the vocabulary, while vernacular languages have more influence on the grammar of the developing pidgin.

The language which supplies most of the vocabulary is known as the lexifier (or sometimes superstrate) language, while the languages which influence the grammatical structure are called the substrate.

Pidgin languages do not have high status or prestige and, to those who do not speak them, they often seem ridiculous languages.

Pidgins often have a short life. If they develop for a restricted function, they disappear when the function disappears.

Examples of Pidgin languages include:

- Madras Bashai - a dialect of Tamil with influences from Indian English, Telugu, Malayalam, Burmese, and Hindustani, spoken in the region of Chennai (India).

- Algonquian-Basque Pidgin – a Basque-based pidgin with influences from the indigenous language, Algonquian, used by Basque whalers and Algonquin communities in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (Canada) up to the 1710s.

- Settla Swahili – a pidgin derived from English with Swahili influences, used by English-speaking European colonists to communicate with Swahili people in Kenya and Zambia.

- Labrador-Inuit Pidgin French – a French-based pidgin with influences from Breton, Basque, and local Inuit languages, spoken in Labrador (Canada) until the 1760s as a means of communication between the two groups.

2. CREOLE

In some cases, however, pidgins go on to develop into fully-fledged languages or creoles.

A creole is a pidgin which has acquired native speakers. They are learned by children as their first language and used in a wide range of domains.

As a result of their status as some group’s first language, creoles also differ from pidgins in their range of functions, in their structure and, in some cases, in the attitudes expressed towards them.

A creole is a pidgin which has expanded in structure and vocabulary to express the range of meanings and serve the range of functions required of a first language.

Creole languages develop ways of systematically signaling meanings such as verb tenses, and these may develop into inflections or affixes over time. Pidgins become more structurally regular as they undergo creolisation, the process by which a pidgin becomes a creole.

 Once a creole has developed it can be used for all the functions of any language – politics, education, administration, original literature and so on. Once developed there is no evidence in their linguistic structure to reveal their pidgin origins.

Though outsiders’ attitudes to creoles are often as negative as their attitudes to pidgins, this is not always the case for those who speak the language. The majority of the people who are monolingual in the creole express strong loyalty to it as the language which best expresses their feelings.

Examples of Creole languages include:

- Bungi Creole – developed from pidgins of Scottish English, Scottish Gaelic, French, Norn, Cree, and Ojibwe. Bungi Creole is spoken in what is now known as Manitoba, Canada.

- Michif - based on a combination of Cree and Métis French with influences from English and neighbouring Indigenous languages, spoken by the Métis people in various Canadian provinces including Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ontario.

- Kituba - National language in the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a Bantu language called Kikongo.

- Haitian Creole – widely spoken as a first language in Haiti, largely based on French with influences from Portuguese, Spanish, English, Taino, and West African languages.