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Definition: pidgin from The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology

A verbal communication system that develops when two different language communities make occasional contact with each other. A pidgin emerges when the contact is not general enough to motivate the learning of each other's language and a blend is devised. Note that pidgins are not usually classified as natural languages (see LANGUAGE) until or unless they become creolized (see CREOLE).


pidgin

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(pĭj'Әn), a lingua franca that is not the mother tongue of anyone using it and that has a simplified grammar and a restricted, often polyglot vocabulary. The earliest documented pidgin is the Lingua Franca (or Sabir) that developed among merchants and traders in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages; it remained in use through the 19th cent. Other known pidgins have been employed in different regions since the 17th cent. An example is the variety of pidgin English that resulted from contacts between English traders and the Chinese in Chinese ports. In fact, the word pidgin supposedly is a Chinese (Cantonese) corruption of the English word business. Another well-known form of pidgin English is the Beach-la-Mar (or Bêche-de-Mer ) of the South Seas. The different kinds of pidgin English have preserved the basic grammatical features of English, at the same time incorporating a number of non-English syntactical characteristics. The great majority of words in pidgin English are of English…
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Full text Article pidgin

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(pĭj'Әn), a lingua franca that is not the mother tongue of anyone using it and that has a simplified grammar and a restricted, often polyglot vocabulary. The earliest documented pidgin is the Lingua Franca (or Sabir) that developed among merchants and traders in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages; …
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Full text Article PIDGIN

From Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity & Culture
The term ‘pidgin’ describes a simplified language that results from extended contact between groups of people with no language in common. According to John Holm, pidgin evolves when there is a ‘need for some means of verbal communication, perhaps for trade, but no group learns the native language of…
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Full text Article pidgin

From A Dictionary of Sociolinguistics
A new and initially simple form of language that arises out of LANGUAGE CONTACT between two or more groups of people who do not share a common language. In its early stages the pidgin is frequently makeshift and reduced in structure, referred to in linguistics as a JARGON or pre-pidgin . …
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Full text Article PIDGINS

From The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Language Sciences
Pidgins are the world’s only non-native languages. They are typically acquired by adults, after the critical period for language acquisition has passed. They normally arise wherever sufficient speakers of mutually incomprehensible languages must interact with one another. Some pidgins arose through…
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Full text Article Pidgin English

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
A simplified language that is a mixture of English and another language with which it is in contact, typically used for trading (‘pidgin’ is an alteration of ‘business’) between people who speak different native languages (the term ‘pidgin’ contrasts with ‘ creole ’, which denotes a mixed language…
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Full text Article pidgin language

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Any of various trade jargons, contact languages, or lingua francas arising in ports and markets where people of different linguistic backgrounds meet for commercial and other purposes. Usually a pidgin language is a rough blend of the vocabulary of one (often dominant) language with the syntax or…
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Full text Article pidgin

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Language with a very limited vocabulary and a simplified grammar. Pidgins usually arise to permit communication between groups with no language in common; if a pidgin becomes established as the native language of a group, it is known as a creole . Pidgins such as Chinese Pidgin English and…
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Full text Article pidgin English

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Originally a trade jargon developed between the British and the Chinese in the 19th century, but now commonly and loosely used to mean any kind of ‘broken’ or ‘native’ version of the English language. Pidgin is believed to have been a Chinese pronunciation of the English word business . There have…
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Full text Article pidgin

From Word Origins
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Full text Article pidgin

From The Macquarie Dictionary
| 50 words
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