pidgin

"To communicate, the Africans borrowed some vocabulary from the British and incorporated their own pronunciation and syntax to form a pidgin thing. Over the generations, it became perfected and developed structure and grammar."

From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2025

Trying to free herself, she began to write in Hawaiian pidgin, a language she both grew up surrounded by and was told by others — including her mother — to avoid out in the world.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2023

Interviewed about her career, her son Michael Hood told Entertainment Weekly that he once asked her why she would agree to do roles in pidgin English.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 10, 2023

Sometimes called pidgin English, the language is widely used and understood across regions and ethnic groups in the nation of 200 million people, although most books and newspapers on sale in Nigeria are in English.

From Reuters ● Jul. 14, 2021

The bearded woman spoke an incomprehensible variety of Ghiscari, the goat boy some guttural sailor’s pidgin called the trade talk.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

His father, Derek Bickerton, an influential linguist specializing in pidgins and creoles, had a Ph.D. from Cambridge University but called himself a “card-carrying autodidact.”

From New York Times ● Dec. 17, 2022

It’s not all bad; I’ve got a whole new suite of creoles and pidgins that I’m enjoying, plus they’ve given me contractions.

From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2018

The traditional idea that creoles come from pidgins may be fascinating, but it risks seeming condescending—by positing that creoles have simpler grammars as a result.

From Economist ● Feb. 1, 2018

There were also, among others, 1,440 speakers of Somali and 370 of "Creoles and pidgins."

From Seattle Times ● May 15, 2012

When you and your friends come flyin' in at first-floor windows like pidgins, Mr. Ventimore, you must expect some notice to be took.

From The Brass Bottle A Farcical Fantastic Play in Four Acts by F. Anstey