Unit 4: What happens when different

languages meet?

Objectives:

• Know the differences between pidgins and creoles

• Understand the reasons why languages change and
develop
• Identify grammatical changes between Standard
English and creole languages  
 What is a pidgin?

• Pidgins are ‘contact languages’ (or a lingua franca) spoken

between groups of people who do not share a common
language
• A pidgin is a simplified language that combines two or more
languages, enabling the members of different speech
communities to communicate with each other
• Pidgins develop when circumstances, such as trade or
colonisation, force different languages together, allowing
groups of people who have no language in common to
communicate with each other
• Pidgins came into being during former colonial times among
the slaves, indentured labourers, overseers and owners who
came from different parts of the world and needed to find a
way to communicate with each other

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 Map of pidgins

Salikoko S. Mufwene. 2013. Kikongo-Kituba structure dataset. 

In: Michaelis, Susanne Maria & Maurer, Philippe & Haspelmath, Martin & Huber, Magnus (eds.) Atlas of Pidgin and
Creole Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 
(Available online at http://apics-online.info/contributions/58, accessed on 2014-12-16.)

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 Origins of pidgins

• Due to the lack of a shared language, pidgins are built from

words, sounds and/or body language from multiple
languages and cultures
• Therefore pidgins borrow from other languages and some
pidgins can be formed as a result of code-switching
• Consequently, pidgins usually have low prestige with
respect to other languages and can be considered as a
variety which is not mutually intelligible
• Pidgins have small vocabularies when compared to a
language such as English, and are typically limited to the
context of use

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 Activity 1

Watch the video and answer the questions:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7X9AAeDCr4
1. From which countries did immigrants to Hawaii originate?
2. Which languages did the pidgin draw upon?
3. How do pidgins start?
4. What does You like banana, you wikiwikikaukau, mai tai
mean?
5. From which languages does this expression draw?
6. What does manapua mean?

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 Limitations of pidgins

• When pidgins are first created there tends to be more than

one emerging
• It is normally the predominant pidgin spoken by the
majority of the speech community that evolves into a
creole, whereas the others tend to die out
• Additionally, pidgin languages are only used to
communicate with outsiders, since members of the same
speech communities would not need to use pidgin to
communicate with each other
• Therefore, pidgins have no native speakers
• Pidgins may sometimes be considered as a stable language
variety, although they are not a natural language as they
have not come about by normal language change and
transmission, but have been ‘invented’

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 Key grammatical features of pidgins

• Reduced grammatical structure

• Narrower range of functions
• Still governed by rules
• Phonological system is important
• Grammatical structures can be more regular than English,
ie no unusual plurals

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 Tenses in pidgin

One of the ways in which pidgins differ from a language such

as English is in the use of tense. In pidgin, tenses are usually
indicated by context or time-related words, rather than by
changes within verbs. In English, past and present tense is
indicated by changes in grammatical structure.
Examples:
• I eat my lunch – simple present tense
• I am eating my lunch – present tense continuous
• I ate my lunch – simple past tense
• I was eating my lunch – past tense continuous
Another difference is that the article or determiners a and
the are missing before a noun

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 Activity 2

Identify the tense and the non-standard English

features in the following structure:

‘You like banana?’

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 Tok Pisin

• One of the most studied examples of pidgin is ‘Tok Pisin’

(Talk Pidgin), spoken in Papua New Guinea and Melanesia,
which developed from varieties of English spoken in the
Pacific region in the 19th century
• This form of pidgin was a method of communication
between English speaking Europeans and Pacific islanders
• It is still used today and you can find many popular songs
translated into Tok Pisin

• Baby video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jqlvP4oAUE

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 Activity 3

• Look up the Tok Pisin Dictionary – www.tok-pisin.com

• In pairs, write a sentence in Tok Pisin and share it with
others in your class
• Try to translate the sentences produced by other pairs

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 Creoles
• When adults who speak pidgin have children, these children may
learn pidgin as their first language which turns it into a creole
• One of the most established creoles in the world today is
Jamaican Creole
• Creoles tend to have native speakers because creoles are pidgin
languages which have been used more widely over time by the
children of the pidgin speakers
• As a result, the pidgin has become the mother tongue of a
generation of new speakers (creolization). Therefore, creoles
are considered to be ‘complete languages’ since they have had
more time to develop their linguistic form and grammar
• Alternatively, such languages can also go through a process of
decreolization. This happens when creole languages come into
contact with and are influenced by standard languages, such as
Standard British English

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 Activity 4

• Attempt to translate the following Jamaican Creole

sentences into standard English:

1. Him go a school every day last year, not sometime him a

go, sometime him no go.
2. Frahwhapawtyohdeh?
3. Suhyuh nah guhbaddaguh.

• What differences can you note between the two versions of

each sentence?

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 Differences between Jamaican Creole and
Standard English

Jamaican Creole Standard English

Him go a school every day last He used to go to school every

year, not sometime him a go, day last year, now sometimes he
sometime him no go. goes and sometimes he doesn’t
go.

Frahwhapwatyuhdeh? Where are you from/from what

part are you?

Suhyuh nah guhbaddaguh? So, you are not going to bother

going?

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 Activity 5

• Read ‘The mango story’

• What differences can you find between Jamaican
Creole and Standard English in this story?

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 Tok Pisin: pidgin or creole?
• Sometimes it is not always easy to say whether a language
spoken is a pidgin or a creole
• After Tok Pisin stabilised, it changed linguistically and
became more complex. It acquired more vocabulary,
grammatical rules and inflections
• Eventually, the children of parents who spoke Tok Pisin
started to acquire Tok Pisin as their first language and it
became their mother tongue (nativization)
• It can be suggested that Tok Pisin has become a creole but
this is debateable. Those who call it a creole emphasise the
fact that it has thousands of native speakers and has the
functions and grammatical features found in typical creoles
• Those who say it is still a pidgin point out that more than
90% of its speakers have a different native language

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 Activity 6

• Read through the information sheet on ‘How pidgins and

creoles were created’ (Resource D) and highlight the key
points

• In your own words, explain the difference between

historical and universalist explanations as to how pidgins
and creoles are formed

• Do you agree with these explanations? Why/why not?

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 Activity 7

• Write 10 quiz questions (and answers) about pidgins and

creoles

• Once you have done this, challenge another member of the

group to answer them. (Don’t let them see the answers
first!)

• Write a glossary of all the key terms covered in this unit

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