Pidgins and Creoles
A. THE DEFINITON OF PIDGIN AND CREOLE LANGUAGE
A.1 THE DEFINITION OF PIDGIN
The etymology of pidgin is uncertain. The Oxford English Dictionary derives it from the English word business as pronounced in Chinese Pidgin English, which was of course used for transacting business. Other possible sources derived pidjom ‘exchange, trade, redemption; a Chinese pronunciation of the Portuguese word ocupação ‘business’; or a South Seas pronunciation of English beach as beachee, from the location where the language was often used (Mühlhäusler, in Holm, 2004).
A pidgin is a language with no native speakers: it is no one’s first language but is a contact language. That is, it is the product of a multilingual situation in which those who wish to communicate must find or improvise a simple language system that will enable them to do so. Very often too, that situation is one in which there is an imbalance of power among the languages as the speakers of one language dominate the speakers of the other languages economically and socially. A highly codified language often accompanies that dominant position. A pidgin is therefore sometimes regarded as a ‘reduced’ variety of a ‘normal’ language, i.e., one of the aforementioned dominant languages, with simplification of the grammar and vocabulary of that language, considerable phonological variation, and an admixture of local vocabulary to meet the special needs of the contact group (Wardhaugh, 2006, pp. 61).
According to Holm (2004, pp. 4–5) a pidgin is a reduced language that results from extended contact between groups of people with no language in common; it evolves when they need some means of verbal communication, perhaps for trade, but no group learns the native language of any other group for social reasons that may include lack of trust or close contact. Usually those with less power (speakers of substrate languages) are more accommodating and use words from the language of those with more power (the superstrate),
A.1 THE DEFINITION OF PIDGIN
The etymology of pidgin is uncertain. The Oxford English Dictionary derives it from the English word business as pronounced in Chinese Pidgin English, which was of course used for transacting business. Other possible sources derived pidjom ‘exchange, trade, redemption; a Chinese pronunciation of the Portuguese word ocupação ‘business’; or a South Seas pronunciation of English beach as beachee, from the location where the language was often used (Mühlhäusler, in Holm, 2004).
A pidgin is a language with no native speakers: it is no one’s first language but is a contact language. That is, it is the product of a multilingual situation in which those who wish to communicate must find or improvise a simple language system that will enable them to do so. Very often too, that situation is one in which there is an imbalance of power among the languages as the speakers of one language dominate the speakers of the other languages economically and socially. A highly codified language often accompanies that dominant position. A pidgin is therefore sometimes regarded as a ‘reduced’ variety of a ‘normal’ language, i.e., one of the aforementioned dominant languages, with simplification of the grammar and vocabulary of that language, considerable phonological variation, and an admixture of local vocabulary to meet the special needs of the contact group (Wardhaugh, 2006, pp. 61).
According to Holm (2004, pp. 4–5) a pidgin is a reduced language that results from extended contact between groups of people with no language in common; it evolves when they need some means of verbal communication, perhaps for trade, but no group learns the native language of any other group for social reasons that may include lack of trust or close contact. Usually those with less power (speakers of substrate languages) are more accommodating and use words from the language of those with more power (the superstrate),
References: Wardhaugh, Ronald. 2006. An Introduction to Sociolinguistic. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Holm, John. 2004. An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Todd, Loreto. 2005. Pidgins and Creoles. London: Routledge Kouwenberg, Silvia & Singler, John Victor. 2008. The Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ambarwati, Rosita. 2012. An Introductionto Sociolinguistics Modul. Magetan: Javas Grafika http://www.uni-due.de/SVE/VARS_PidginsAndCreoles.htm, (accessed at 08.36 a.m, October 4th, 2012) http://www.hevanet.com/alexwest/pidgin.html, (accessed at 08.36 a.m, October 5th, 2012)