trade language
Mercantile communication system
A trade language is a simplified or hybrid language used for communication between groups who don't share a native tongue, typically developed for commerce or other practical exchanges.
Pidgins and lingua francas serve as trade languages: Swahili functioned as a trade language across East Africa.
The term emphasizes utility over native fluency—a shared tool rather than a mother tongue.
- pidginImprovised contact language
- lingua francaShared tongue between peoples
- Haitian CreoleCaribbean nation's primary language
- SwahiliBantu language of East Africa
- broken EnglishImperfect foreign language use
Esperanto · pidgin English · port · port city · contact · harbor · barter · negotiation · hand signals · caravan · sailor · pidginization · simplified · coastal · Gullah · exchange · colonial · merchant
- jargonjargon, lingo, legal jargon, slang, buzz words
- language typespidgin, creole, vernacular, patois, argot
- language varietiesdialect, idiolect, sociolect, vernacular, accent
- lingua francaslingua franca, English, French, Spanish, Arabic
- Contact Languagespidgin, pidginization, relexification, code switching, substrate
- languagesEnglish, Arabic, Chinese, German, French
trade languagemother tongue
Language acquired from birth
native language · first language · heritage language · ancestral language · L1
trade, language, trader, trading, linguist, linguistic, linguistics