Pidgin: Description, Genesis.
Description
Pidgins and creoles are new varieties of language generated in situations of language contact.
A pidgin is sharply restricted in social role, used for limited communication between speakers of two or
more languages who have repeated or extended contacts with each other, for instance, through trade,
enslavement, or migration. A pidgin usually combines elements of the native languages of its users
and is typically simpler than those native languages insofar as it has fewer words, less morphology,
and a more restricted range of phonological and syntactic options.
Pidgins have most commonly arisen as vehicles of trade between ethnic groups; as linguae francae on plantations and in other multi-ethnic work situations; as linguae francae for multi-ethnic ship crews; and as languages of service.
Structurally, pidgins are simpler than their source languages, particularly the
language which provides the bulk of their lexicon. This is well exemplified by Russenorsk, a trade
pidgin used by Norwegians and Russians in the nineteenth century:
1 Russenorsk had a core lexical stock of 150 to 200 words,
unmarked for case, number, gender, or inflection: moja snaiI know, Kristus snaiJesus
knows.
2 There was a single preposition påused to encode a wide array of concepts: på moja stovaat
my house, på Arkangelto Archangel, sprek på mojasay to me, etc..
3 There was no expressed equative copula: eta ø samme slagthis is the same type.
4 Subordination was expressed via juxtaposition: Kristus grot vrei, tvoja ljugomChrist will be
very angry if you lie.
5 Limited lexical stock conditioned semantic extensions, such as the extension of anner
second to the meaning of next as in på anner arnext year, and
reduplication, such as morra-morradag the day after tomorrow.
Pidgins can be further distinguished as being the only
languages which combine simplification of inner form with two other factors: the combination of
elements from different languages, and use by speakers of different native languages and argots, lack one of these traits.
Pidgins have traditionally been defined as being conventionalized or having relatively
established norms of usage, in contrast to jargons (or prepidgin continua) which are more variable,
and strongly affected by the native language of their users.
Pidgins often emerge within contexts of asymmetrical social status. In some cases, social dominance falls to those who were the original inhabitants of the area the pidgin emerges in.
In such cases, most of the pidgin's lexical stock is derived from the language of the socially dominant
(the superstate language) while the language or languages of the socially subordinate (the substrate
language(s)) have most of their effect upon its phonology, syntax, and semantics (although the
substrate indeed makes lexical contributions and the superstate has significant influence upon
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structure).
Genesis.
As Ferguson and DeBose show, people attempting to communicate in their language with foreigners use common if not universal simplification tendencies such as slow, exaggerated enunciation, uninflected forms, and the omission of articles, prepositions, and other function words. This practice has often passed from the individual domain into development as an established register regularly acquired and utilized by members of a community when communicating with outsiders. Such registers were pivotal in the emergence of pidgins such as Pidgin Fijian and Chinook Jargon.
An oversimplified but heuristically useful characterization of pidgins would be that they result from the interaction between superstrate-based foreigner talk and structural features derived from the substrate languages. Note, however, that the substrate speakers can be thought to contribute a foreigner talk register of their own grammars to the emerging pidgin.
Pidginization and simplification as a cline.
Pidginization manifests itself in degrees, as do most language contact phenomena, such that
pidginization can be seen as one end of a cline which begins with full acquisition, proceeds through
cases of language shift such as Irish English and Yiddish, and culminates in pidgins like Russenorsk
and Tok Pisin. Various pidgins, however, fall between Russenorsk and Yiddish along this cline,
therefore displaying more vigorous reflections of structural complexity, and a vaster lexical stock.
Such cases typically stem from either richer contact between superstrate and substrate speakers than
was the case between the originators of deeper pidgins, or from close genetic relationship between
superstrate and substrate languages.
For example, the pidginized Assamese called Naga Pidgin displays more inflection than most pidgins;
this feature is due in part to the fact that the Nagas encountered Assamese not only as a trade
language but as a language of instruction.
Pidgin: Life-cycle issues
Pidgins figured in the classic formulation of the contact language life cycle offered by Hall (1966), in which they were couched as the initial stage in a process which proceeded through creolization and ended in eventual decreolization towards a lexifier.
Research demonstrates that the transformation of a pidgin into a creole is
sometimes achieved via general expansion of social domain, such that the language develops via
heavy usage in a wide variety of contexts, accomplished by adults as well as by children. As such, it is
perhaps more appropriate to equate the transformation of a pidgin into a creole not with nativization,
but with expansion through extension in social role.
It has been more specifically argued that it is high usage among speakers of mutually unintelligible
substrate languages, rather than between superstrate and substrate speakers, that sparks expansion,
given that superstratesubstrate communication will often take place within contexts of a rather
sociolinguistically narrow variety.
Pidgins also frequently pass through various geographical and sociolinguistic contexts in the process of expansion. The pidgincreoledecreolization life cycle formulation, while useful,
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tends to obscure the rich variety of interactions which a pidgin language can have with its sociological setting.
While many pidgins undergo the types of expansion discussed above, just as many persist in pidgin form over long periods of time. A pidgin only expands in response to sociological motivations licensing such expansion. In the absence of such motivation, pidgins remain reduced but functional trade vehicles.
Most pidgins which do not experience expansion eventually undergo language death when the
sociological motivations for their existence cease to exist. Attitudinal factors can also spell the death of a pidgin.
