ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by establishing the concepts of pidgins/pidginization and creoles/creolization before entering into a treatment of these languages in the Caribbean, West Africa, and the Pacific. In each of these three cases the vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar of a particular variety – Jamaican Creole, West African Pidgin English, and Tok Pisin – are used as examples. Various more general questions are raised such as the influence of the substrate on these pidgins and creoles, the existence of a linguistic continuum, or the use of alternative types of word formation. The chapter is rounded with the example of a Tok Pisin text.
