This process of simplification and hybridization involves reduction of linguistic resources and restriction of use to such limited functions as trade. In sociolinguistic terms, there have been many pidgins and the process known as pidginization is seen as liable to occur anywhere under appropriate conditions.

For them, a pidgin is a marginal language which arises to fulfil certain restricted communicative functions among groups with no common language. Sociolinguists in particular use the term to describe a phenomenon whose study has greatly increased since the Second World War. It should be noted, however, that Chinese ( Coastal) Pidgin English or China Coast Pidgin is now a technical term referring to a contact language used between speakers of English and Chinese from the first half of the 18c until the early 1970s.

Peters noted: ‘Pidgeon, is the common Chinese pronunciation of business’ ( OED).

Hall wrote: ‘I afterwards learned that “pigeon”, in the strange jargon spoken at Canton by way of English, means business’ in 1845, J. This was a TRADE JARGON used from the 17c onward between the British and Chinese in such ports as Canton. Etymologically, there appears to have been only one pidgin: Pidgin English, also known as Business English, Pidgin-English, pidgin-English, Pigeon English, Pigeon-English, bigeon, pidgeon, pidjin, pidjun. Because the word has often been used and discussed pejoratively, it carries such connotations as ‘childish’, ‘corrupt’, ‘lazy’, ‘inferior’, ‘oversimplified’, and ‘simple-minded’. The general senseĪs generally understood, a pidgin is a hybrid ‘makeshift language’ used by and among traders, on plantations (especially with and among slaves of various backgrounds), and between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of Asia, Africa, and the Americas, especially during the heyday of European expansion (17–20c). PIDGIN A term used in both a general and a technical sense for a CONTACT LANGUAGE which draws on elements from two or more languages: pidgin Portuguese a Spanish pidgin.

Pidgin language example