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Pidgins
- 2. Pidgin A variety of language - created for very practical and immediate purpose to communicate between people who otherwise would have no common language whatsoever, - learned by one person from another within the communities concerned as the accepted way of communicating with members of other community.
- 3. In short Pidgin is a mixture of two or more existing varieties, created jointly for some special purpose, and different from both varieties in terms of lexicon, syntax and morphology.
- 4. Why Pidgin is created? 1. Trade: Pidgin is created where two (or more) communities with languages incomprehensible to each other start trade and business. Here, the need to communicate with members of other community arise, resulting in a PIDGIN- mixture of two different languages of both trading communities.
- 5. BUT Not all pidgins are restricted to being used as trade languages, only. Nor all trade languages are PIDGINS. e.g. English and French are widely used as trade languages in many parts of Africa.
- 6. Why Pidgin is created? 2. General Communication: Pidgin may be created specially for the purpose of communicating with some other group, and not used by any community for communication among themselves. e.g. There are a large number of pidgins spread all over the world- where migrants have developed pidgin varieties based on national languages for example in Germany.
- 7. Characteristics of Pidgin Variety Each pidgin is specially constructed to suit the needs of its users. i.e. The terminology and constructions developed are according to the kind of contact among the communities. e.g. if the contact is restricted to the dealing of cattle only, then only linguistic items to do with this are needed and there will be no way of talking about vegetables, emotions etc.
- 8. Characteristics of Pidgin Variety It should be as simple to learn as possible. (specially for those who benefit least from learning it) That is why vocabulary is generally based on the vocabulary of dominant group. e.g. in colonial situation, vocabulary is based on colonial power. That is the reason a very large number of pidgins spread round the globe, are based on English, French, Portuguese and Dutch.
- 9. Characteristics of Pidgin Variety Syntax and Phonology is based on subservant languages. It makes the pidgin easier for other communities to learn, than the dominant language in its ordinary form.
- 10. Characteristics of Pidgin Variety Pidgins lack Morphology. Differences of tense, number case etc are marked by the addition of separate words.
- 11. An example from Tok Pisin- An English based Pidgin spoken in Papua New Guinea Bai em I no lukim mi. He will not see me. Bai Em i no luk -im mi From by and by. (to indicate future tense- will) From him, meaning he. From he, added to verb whose subject is 3rd person (like –s) From no, used instead of does not. From look, but means see. From him, added to a verb with object. From me.
- 12. Example shows: I. Syntax is different from English (Dominant group). II. Syntax is rigidly rule-governed. (look at ‘I’ and ‘-im’) III. Example also shows that its not a variety of English language but is a different language, nearly complete in it self.
- 13. Pidgin v/s other varieties A Pidgin is itself a language and not a ‘bad variety’ of the language on which it is based. - it has its own community of speakers and is passed from one generation to the next. - and hence, has its own history. - many pidgins may have a common origin as Portuguese based pidgins in far east and west Africa.
- 14. Pidgin v/s other varieties Pidgin is not simply a result of borrowing from one variety into another as there is no pre existing variety into which items may be borrowed. o X based pidgin is not a variety of X which as borrowed a lot of syntactic constructions and phonological features from other varieties. o Nor is it a variety of some other language which has borrowed a lot of vocabulary from X.
- 15. Pidgin v/s other varieties Unlike ordinary languages, Pidgin has no native speakers. o It is used only for communication between members of different communities.
Editor's Notes
- Page 60, para 2.