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Pidgin English is a non-specific name used to refer to any of the many pidgin languages derived from English. Pidgins that are spoken as first languages become creoles . English-based pidgins that became stable contact languages, and which have some documentation, include the following:
The word pidgin, formerly also spelled pigion, [9] was first applied to Chinese Pidgin English, but was later generalized to refer to any pidgin. [11] Pidgin may also be used as the specific name for local pidgins or creoles, in places where they are spoken. For example, the name of the creole language Tok Pisin derives from the English words ...
West African Pidgin English, from the Guinea Coast. Kru Pidgin English; Liberian Interior Pidgin English; Nigerian Pidgin; Cameroonian Pidgin English; Asia South Asia Butler English (India)
The term "pidgin" itself is believed by some etymologists to be a corruption of the pronunciation of the English word "business" by the Chinese (see Pidgin § Etymology). [5] Chinese Pidgin English began to decline in the late 19th century as standard English began to be taught in the country's education system. [6]
Native American Pidgin English; Nauruan Pidgin English; Ndyuka-Tiriyó Pidgin; Ngatikese Creole; Norfuk language; Northern Territory Pidgin English; P. Papuan Pidgin ...
Tok originates from English talk, but has a wider application, also meaning 'word, speech, language'. Pisin derives from the English word pidgin; the latter, in turn, may originate in the word business, which is descriptive of the typical development and use of pidgins as inter-ethnic trade languages.
It is disputed to what extent the various English-based creoles of the world share a common origin. The monogenesis hypothesis [2] [3] posits that a single language, commonly called proto–Pidgin English, spoken along the West African coast in the early sixteenth century, was ancestral to most or all of the Atlantic creoles (the English creoles of both West Africa and the Americas).
For example, you sabi do am? means "do you know how to do it?". Sabi means "to know" or "to know how to", just as "to know" is saber in Portuguese. [14] (According to the monogenetic theory of pidgins, sabir was a basic word in Mediterranean Lingua Franca, brought to West Africa through Portuguese pidgin. An English cognate is savvy.)