PIDGIN AND CREOLE

Pidgins and Creoles are types of languages that ascend to bridge the gap between people who could not otherwise communicate with each other. The study of pidgin and Creole languages can lead us to the nature of language formation and its subsequent evolution.

A pidgin language is known as a drastic reduction of the upper language when in contact with one or more vernaculars and the resultant linguistic system is native to none of its speakers. We could also define it as one with greatly reduced vocabulary (usually between 700 and 1,500 words) of English, French, Portuguese or Spanish origin, to which a small quantity of native words have been added. Sometimes it is a simplified form of a local language, with words or expressions borrowed from another language. A pidgin language has no native speakers. It is always spoken in addition to one's mother tongue. Usually the rules of pidgins are shared by members of a community of speakers.

Pidgin is not peculiar to modern times. It is as ancient as people's need to communicate with members of different speech communities. Some scholars have postulated that modern English has its roots in some form of pidgin which developed from the contact of English with Old Norse and Norman French. Most of today's pidgins and Creoles are directly linked to the slave trade first done by the Portuguese on the African coast in 1442.

When a pidgin eventually becomes the mother tongue of a group of people it is thereafter referred to as a Creole language, and is said to have become "creolized". Its vocabulary must greatly expand, or reexpand, to accommodate its user's everyday needs. Creole have been described as nativized pidgin in the sense that it has acquired native speakers. Creole rarely have written form, but it functions in the same manner of a natural language. There is enough evidence leading to the conclusion that the term "creole" was first used to designate ethnicity, or a language spoken by individuals directly linked to their ethnic roots.

Pidgin English and French Creole are two good examples of these languages. Pidgin forms of English have existed in a number of countries, but the most important one in use today is the Melanesian Pidgin of eastem New Guinea and nearby islands. As the indispensable "lingua franca" of the region, it has been accorded official status in the new country of Papua New Guinea. French Creoles, in many different varieties, are spoken in Louisiana, Haiti, Guadeloup, Martinique, St. Lucia, Trindad, and French Guiana, as well as Mauritius and Reunion in The Indian Oceean.

A number of other pidgins and Creoles have gained considerable importance and acceptance in some countries.

Papiamento, based principally on Spanish, is widely spoken in Curacao and other islands of the Netherlands Antilles. In Surinam (Dutch Guiana), in South America, a language called Taki-Taki ("talkee talkee"), based on English with numerous Dutch words, has become the lingua franca, while Saramacca, a Creole based on English but containing several features of African speech, is spoken by the Bush Negros, the descendants of former African slaves.

In Africa the seene is not different. We can find languages like a Pidgin English spoken in Cameroon, another known as Krio spoken in Sierra Leone, and a Portuguese Creole spoken in Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands. Kituba, a simplified form of the Kongo language, is widely spoken in the Kongo, while Fanakalo, based widely on Zulu with many English and some African words added, is spoken in South Africa among those employed in the mines.

In Papua, in southeastern New Guinea, another pidgin language, Police Motu, has become the "lingua franca" of much of the region. It is a simplified form of a language known as Motu, which became the trading language between The Motuans and their customers along the shores of the Gulf of Papua. Police Motu derives its curious name from the fact that it was used by the prewar Papuan native police force, which drew its recruits from all parts of the territory.

In Haiti and in Cape Verde the dominant official languages (French and Portuguese) are radically different from their Creole in structural formation. The authors that support this fact, theorize that neither Portuguese nor French had undergone a "pidginization" process similar to the case of English. They say that these two countries developed a process of "naturalization" of the Creoles.