pidgin English
Simplified contact speech
Pidgin English is a simplified form of English mixed with elements from other languages, developed for communication between groups without a shared tongue.
Pidgins arose historically in trade ports and colonial settings—Chinese Pidgin English, Hawaiian Pidgin, West African Pidgin.
The grammar is streamlined, vocabulary limited to practical needs: Long time no see entered mainstream English from Chinese Pidgin.
When children grow up speaking a pidgin as their native language, it becomes a creole.
- trade languageSimplified speech between groups
- lingua francaShared tongue between peoples
- creole continuumSpeech variety range
- reduplicationMorphological doubling process
- interlanguageEvolving system between tongues
West Africa · port towns · simplification · diglossia · code-switching · small talk · sociolinguistics · hybrid · pidginization · coast · slang · vocabulary · communication · makeshift · jargon · colonial · Nigerian · dialect
- NigeriaAbuja, Lagos, Independence Day, National Assembly, Niger River
- trade languagecreole, lingua franca, Haitian Creole
- West AfricaNigeria, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Senegal
- World EnglishesIndian English, Singlish, Hinglish, Chinglish, Japanglish
- African Englishcolonial influence, colonial language
- CameroonFulani, francophone, reunification, coastal lowlands, Santa
pidgin Englishmother tongue
Language acquired from birth
first language · native language · academic English · vernacular · natural language
pidgin EnglishQueen's English
Standard British formal speech
King's English · Standard English · BBC English · Oxford English · proper English
pidgin Englishstandard language
Codified, official linguistic form