In the beginning was the word! Or the pidgin.

Imagine that you need a language immediately because, otherwise, you cannot communicate with anyone else. Nobody knows your language and you don’t know the other’s language. There is more: no common language is available! You have to communicate with the indigenous people because you are a merchant and you have to sell your products. What would you do?

Probably you would try to communicate somehow, right? You would use gestures and body language at first. But you would not go a long way if you wanted to be a successful businessman. You would able to do more than primitive negotiations if you used also a tongue for communication. But which tongue? You have to create one. How is it possible? For sure, on the first try, the language should be easy and comprehensive.

Well, here is the recipe what you need:

Take some vocabulary from your language and the other’s language. Mix them with easy grammar which concerns all aspects of grammar: lexicon, phonology, syntax, semantics, and morphology. The easy grammar should contain easy clausal structure (e.g., no embedded clauses, etc.), use of separate words to indicate tense by using temporal adverbs such as tomorrow, yesterday, etc.! Pay attention to the word order! Follow the Subject-Verb-Object word order. Don’t use grammatical markers for gender, number, case, tense, aspect, mood, etc. Use reduplication to represent plurals and superlatives. Reduce or eliminate syllable codas and consonant clusters. Attention to phonological simplicity! Use basic vowels, such as [a, e, i, o, u]!

At the end, you will obtain an easy language. Moreover, you would not be alone. There are other merchants and even colonizers who share the same problem. Gather with them because together is easier.  

Now, that you have the language, it needs a name too. How would you call it? You are a merchant. You may like to call your new creation after some characteristic of it. What would you think about calling it ‘business’? But it has to carry the sensation of being different from a standard. You have to spice the word ‘business’ with indigenous style! Got it! Call it pidgin!

Now your language is done and you are officially a pidgin’s speaker. However, you have to face the ugly truth. Your language is too simple to get a prestige. People would criticize your work saying that it is incomplete, broken, and corrupt, not worthy of serious attention because reduced in structure. You could reply in this way: Attention, please, because here we can observe the birth of languages!

Hey, should we think that these were the characteristics of the very first human language as well?

Well, probably you would not go into creation. Your child will.

Now imagine that you are that child whose parents are pidgin’s speakers in the colony. You fall in love with another descendent of pidgin’s speaker. You would like to express your feelings. You need a more complex language with more expressive vocabulary and more complicated grammar. How would you do that?

Here is the recipe:

Use solely of intonation to indicate that a question is being asked. Repeat adjectives or adverbs to indicate an increased degree of intensity. Stop using tone on monosyllabic words, and semantically opaque word formation as your parents do. When it is ready, you have to give it a name. Let’s call it creole.

Have you noticed that all pidgins and all creoles work in a very similar way? They share common features although these may never get into contact. So, is there something universal here? Are these characteristic innate?

We arrived at our definition:

Pidgin and creoles are both the result of mixing two or more languages, but in a different level. They arise in situations of trade or where both groups speak different languages from the language of the place. Pidgin is typically, a mixture of simplified languages or a simplified primary language with other languages' elements included. Pidgin is nobody's native language, a second language while Creole is the native language of the speakers. At least most scholars share this idea. Other scholars argue that pidgins and creoles arise independently.