Pidgins and

creoles Presented
Mg. Ana by
Mustafa Elsinousy
: Amal
Vera de la Torre
The main points :

 Introduction
 Lingua franca
 Pidgins
 Pidginization
 creole
 Creolization
 Decreolization
Introduction:
When two or more people
from different languages
meet and tried to
communicate, what should
they do ?
Answers :
1. Use a third language (Lingua
Franca)
2. Mix the two languages (Pidgin
/Creole)
Lingua Franca
A lingua franca is a language which
is used habitually by people whose
mother tongues are different in
order to facilitate communication
between them.
Other terms that are used to refer
to Lingua francas:

 a trade language e.g., Swahili in East

Africa.
 A contact language e.g., Greek koine
 An international language e.g., English
 An auxiliary language e.g., Esperanto.
 A mixed language .e.g., Mitchif in
Canada
English – lingua franca:
Spoken in many countries as a
native language .
Spoken as a second language
in other countries e.g., India and
the Philippines.
Other languages – lingua francas:
• Many Languages throughout the history
served as lingua franca:
o Chinese
o French
o Arabic
o Chinook Jargon ( American Indian)
• We can conclude that mainly political
and economical power defines the
Lingua Franca.
pidgins
 Origin:
 Assumed to be coming from a Chinese
attempt to pronounce the English word
business during trades in the Far East.
 Historically, pidgins arose in colonial
situations where the representatives of
the particular colonial power, officials,
tradesmen, sailors, etc., came in contact
with natives
 Definition:
 A pidgin or contact language is a restricted
and extended language which arises with
an urgency of communication to serve
specific needs between social groups that
are ethnically and linguistically different from
each other .
 One of these groups is in a more dominant
position than the other; the less dominant
group is the one which develops the pidgin.
Pidginization:
Is a complex combination of different
processes of change, including
reduction and simplification of input
materials ,internal innovation, and
regularization of structure, with L1
influence also playing role.
 Characteristics of pidgin language:
 No native speakers yet .
 spoken by millions as means of communication
 Not used as a means of group identification.
 A product of multilingual – 3 languages – one is
dominant. The dominant language  superior
because of economical or social factor.
 Two languages involved  a power struggle for
dominance.
 The dominant group –more vocabulary (lexifier –
superstrate) ,while the less dominant languages
–grammar (substrate).
 Main function –trading
• Reduced grammatical structure:

 Phonology:  CV syllable preferred

 Morphology:  Poor affixation
 -Reduplication is common
 Syntax:
 SVO pattern preferred
 -Articles usually omitted

 Lexicon:  Limited vocabulary

 Semantics:  Semantic extensions
 Pragmatics:  Narrower range of
functions
Possible outcomes of Pidgins
 Die
out (when original reason for
communication diminishes or disappears)

 Develop to more formal roles (lingua

franca); which is called an ‘expanded
pidgin’

 Develop into a creole

Creoles
 Origin:
An adaptation of the Castilian Spanish
criollo (home, local)
from Portuguese criar (to rear, to bring up),
from Latin creo ("to create").
Definition:
Acreole is a pidgin that has
become the first language of a
new generation of speakers.
 Creolization:
Isa process where a pidgin
expanded in structure and
vocabulary in order to express the
range of meanings and serve the
range of functions required of a first
language.
characteristics of Creoles
o pidgins adopted as the native language.
 Nativization is when pidgin passed onto
new generations and became a mother
tongue which is acquired by children.
 Often classified as English/French/Spanish…
based
 speech becomes faster,

 Expansion of morphology and syntax.

 Expansion of phonology.
 Expansion of the lexicon.
Decreolization
It is a hypothetical phenomenon
whereby over time a 
creole language reconverges with
one of the standard languages from
which it originally derived. the
theory of creole continua.
Bickerton (1975)has proposed a number
of terms to refer to the creole continuum in
Guyanese English:
 Acrolect : which refers to educated
Guyanese English which has very few
differences from other varieties of standard
language.
 Basilect:refers to a variety that would be
least comprehensible to a speaker of the
standard
 Mesolects: are intermediate varieties which
are used to fill the space between the
Acrolect and basilect.
Life-Cycle Model of Pidgins and
Creoles
 Jargon  Pidgin  Pidgin Créole  Creole
⇩ ⇩ ⇩
⇩ Post-creole continuum ⇩
Post-pidgin continuum ⇘ ⇙
Nativized version
of lexifier

 e.g.,
- Russenorsk Solomon Islands Haitian
 - Chinese PE Tok Pisin Jamaican
 An example of a creole:
• Jamaican creole is mixed with English and
African.
For example :
• instead of saying me they say mi.
• This sentence is written in Jamaican creole:

• Unu cya lissen to we mia say!

English is:

• Cant you listen to what I'm saying!

Distributions of Ps and Cs
Pidgins are distributed mainly in places
with direct or easy access to the oceans.
They are found mainly in the Caribbean
and around the north and east coasts of
South America and Africa .
Thanks for
Listening