ABSTRACT
The term mixed language has frequently been applied to pidgins and creoles, which are mixed in the sense that they often show influences from more than one language. Thus, in the Cameroon Pidgin sentences:
Dat pikin sabi gari. (That child loves eating gari.) Ma haus big pas . (My house is biggest.) Baiam giv mi. (Buy it for me.)
English has provided ten of the thirteen words; Portuguese has provided two (pikin ‘child’ and sabi ‘know, be able to’), Igbo has provided one (gari ‘grated cassava’) and African languages have provided the structure of the comparison and the imperative. (In Lamnso, for example, the sentence would be rendered:
Lav yem kuh shaah sidzem. House my big pass all.
