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A pidgin is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups who do not share a common language, in situations such as trade. Pidgins are not the native language of any speech community, but are instead learned as second languages.^[1] Pidgins usually have low prestige with respect to other languages.^[2]

Not all simplified or "broken" forms of language are pidgins. Pidgins have their own norms of usage which must be learned to speak the pidgin well.^[3]

The word pidgin, formerly also spelled pigion, derives from a Chinese Pidgin English pronunciation of business. Originally used to describe Chinese Pidgin English, it was later generalized to refer to any pidgin.^[4] Pidgin may also be used as the specific name for a local pidgin in places where they are spoken. For example, the name of Tok Pisin derives from the English words talk pidgin, and its speakers usually refer to it simply as "Pidgin" when speaking English.^{[citation needed]}

The term jargon has also been used to describe pidgins, and is found in the names of some pidgins such as Chinook Jargon. In this context, linguists today use jargon to denote a particularly rudimentary type of pidgin;^[5] however, this usage is rather rare, and the term jargon most often refers to the words particular to a given profession.

Pidgins may start out as or become trade languages, such as Tok Pisin; but trade languages are often full blown languages in their own right such as Swahili, Persian, or English. Trade languages tend to be "vehicular languages", while pidgins can evolve into the vernacular.

Since a Pidgin strives to be a simple and effective form of communication, the grammar, phonology, etc, are as simple as possible, and usually consist of:

• A Subject-Verb-Object word order in a sentence
• Uncomplicated clausal structure (i.e., no embedded clauses, etc)
• Reduction or elimination of syllable codas
• Reduction of consonant clusters or breaking them with epenthesis
• Basic vowels, like /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/
• No tones, such as those found in West African and East Asian languages
• Use of separate words to indicate tense, usually preceding the verb
• Use of reduplication to represent plurals, superlatives, and other parts of speech that represent the concept being increased
• A lack of morphophonemic variation

The creation of a pidgin usually requires:

• Prolonged, regular contact between the different language communities
• A need to communicate between them
• An absence of (or absence of widespread proficiency in) a widespread, accessible interlanguage

Also, Keith Whinnom (in Hymes 1971) suggests that pidgins need three languages to form, with one (the superstrate) being clearly dominant over the others.

It is often posited that pidgins become creole languages when a generation whose parents speak pidgin to each other teach it to their children as their first language. Creoles can then replace the existing mix of languages to become the native language of a community (such as Krio in Sierra Leone and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea). However, not all pidgins become creole languages; a pidgin may die out before this phase would occur.

Other scholars, such as Salikoko Mufwene, argue that pidgins and creoles arise independently under different circumstances, and that a pidgin need not always precede a creole nor a creole evolve from a pidgin. Pidgins, according to Mufwene, emerged among trade colonies among "users who preserved their native vernaculars for their day-to-day interactions". Creoles, meanwhile, developed in settlement colonies in which speakers of a European language, often indentured servants whose language would be far from the standard in the first place, interacted heavily with non-European slaves, absorbing certain words and features from the slaves' non-European native languages, resulting in a heavily basilectalized version of the original language. These servants and slaves would come to use the creole as an everyday vernacular, rather than merely in situations in which contact with a speaker of the superstrate was necessary.^[6]

• Creole language
• Decreolization
• Mediterranean Lingua Franca or Sabir
• Mixed language
• Trading zones
• Béarlachas

• Bakker, Peter (1994). "Pidgins", in Jacques Arends, Pieter Muysken, Norval Smithh: Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction. John Benjamins, 26–39. 
• Hymes, Dell (1971). Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07833-4. 
• McWhorter, John (2002). The Power of Babel: The Natural History of Language. Random House Group. ISBN 0-06-052085-X. 
• Sebba, Mark (1997). Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles. MacMillan. ISBN 0-333-63024-6. 
• Thomason, Sarah Grey. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. 
• Todd, Loreto. Pidgins and Creoles. Routledge. ISBN 0415053110.