Although numerous studies have been devoted to bilingualism, relatively few have focused on the phenomenon of the pidgin languages. Philologists, theorists and historians of these languages tend to ignore them and prefer to focus on the primary languages. This is especially surprising since there are many forms of pidgin used daily in the world, particularly in ethnically diverse areas.

Pidgin is considered to be a very basic and simplified form of speech, an auxiliary and contact language, which means it is used for communication between different cultures and speakers of mutually unintelligible languages and dialects.
The term ‘pidgin’ originally referred to Chinese Pidgin English, a variety of English spoken by the Chinese and British as a trade language. With the passage of time, the term became generalized and now refers to any kind of simplified, combined language. The origin of the name itself is not clear. It probably derives from the Cantonese pronunciation of the English word business or from the English word pigeon, thereby referring to the use of birds for carrying messages. Continue reading →