Pidginization
The development of a pidgin, which a simplified
form of speech that is usually a mixture of two or more languages, is called
the pidginization.This is usually a temporary stage in language learning.
The creation of a pidgin usually requires:
Prolonged, regular contact between the different
language communities.
A need to communicate between them.
An absence of a widespread, accessible
interlanguage.
Also, Keith Whinnom suggests that pidgins need
three languages to form, with one (the superstrate) being clearly dominant over
the others.
It is often posited that pidgins become Creole
languages when a generation whose parents speak pidgin to each other teach it
to their children as their first language. Creoles can then replace the
existing mix of languages to become the native language of a community (such as
Krio in Sierra Leone and Tok
Pisin in Papua New Guinea).
However, not all pidgins become creole languages; a pidgin may die out before
this phase would occur.
Other scholars, such as Salikoko Mufwene, argue
that pidgins and creoles arise independently under different circumstances, and
that a pidgin need not always precede a creole nor a creole evolve from a
pidgin. Pidgins, according to Mufwene, emerged among trade colonies among
"users who preserved their native vernaculars for their day-to-day
interactions". Creoles, meanwhile, developed in settlement colonies in
which speakers of a European language, often indentured servants whose language
would be far from the standard in the first place, interacted heavily with
non-European slaves, absorbing certain words and features from the slaves'
non-European native languages, resulting in a heavily basilectalized version of
the original language. These servants and slaves would come to use the creole
as an everyday vernacular, rather than merely in situations in which contact
with a speaker of the superstrate was necessary.
