A pidgin is a language which has no native speakers. Pidgins develop as a means of communication between people who do not have a common language. Pidgin seems particularly likely to arise when two groups of people with different languages are communicating in a situation where there is a third dominant language. In the Caribbean slave plantations in the 17th and 18th centuries, the African salves were deliberately separated from others who used the same language to reduce the risk of their plotting to escape or rebel. In order to communicate with each other, as well as with their overseers, these slaves developed pidgins based on the language of the plantation bosses as well as their own languages.

Pidgins also developed as the languages of trade between traders – those who use colonial language such as Portuguese, Spanish, or English and the Indians, Chinese, Africans or American Indians they were trading with.

Initially, Pidgins develop with a narrow range of functions. These who use them do speak other languages. Pidgin is an addition to their language repertoire used for a specific purpose, such as trade or perhaps administration.

Pidgins often have a short life spend. If they develop for a restricted function, they disappear when the function disappears. In Vietnam a pidgin English developed for use between the American troops and the Vietnamese, but it subsequently dies out. A trading pidgin using disappears when the trade between the groups dies out. Alternatively, if trade grows, then more contacts will generally lead to at least one side learning the other’s language and so the need for the pidgin disappears. In some cases, however, pidgins go on to develop into fully fledged languages or creoles.

A creole is a pidgin which has acquired native speakers. Many of the languages which are called pidgins are in fact now creole language. They are learned by children as their first language and used in a wide range of domains.

A creole is a pidgin which has expanded in structure and vocabulary to express the range of meanings and serve the range of functions required by a first language.

Many present-day Creoles are spoken by descendants of the African salves in America and the Caribbean. The common language of the plantation was generally a pidgin, and children naturally acquired the pidgin as a first language. As the ‘families’ communicative needs expanded, so did the resources of the language they used. The pidgin developed into a creole.

Source : “An Introduction to Sociolinguistics” by Janet Holmes. Published by Pearson Education Limited, UK.