Meaning & use
Pidgin
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A simplified language, typically with a limited vocabulary drawn from two or more other languages, that develops as a means of communication between groups without a common tongue.
See it in a sentence
Traders along the coast communicated in a pidgin that mixed local words with Portuguese.
Tok Pisin, spoken in Papua New Guinea, began as an English-based pidgin.
A note on using this word
Believed to derive from a Chinese Pidgin English pronunciation of the word 'business'; distinct from a creole, a pidgin's native-speaker descendant.
Words with a similar meaning
contact languagelingua franca
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