pidgin (n.)

A term used in SOCIOLINGUISTICS to refer to a LANGUAGE with a markedly reduced GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE, LEXICON and STYLISTIC range, compared with other languages, and which is the native language of no one. Structures which have been reduced in this way are said to be pidginized. Pidgins are formed by two mutually unintelligible SPEECH communities attempting to communicate, each successively approximating to the more obvious features of the other’s language. Such developments need considerable motivation on the part of the speakers, and it is therefore not surprising that pidgin languages flourish in areas of economic development, as in the pidgins based on English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, in the East and West Indies, Africa and the Americas (where they were often referred to as trade languages). Some pidgins have become so useful that they have developed a role as AUXILIARY languages, and been given official status by the community (e.g. Tok Pisin). These cases are called expanded pidgins because of the way they have added extra features to cope with the needs of the users. Pidgins become CREOLIZED when they become the mother-tongue of a community.