ABSTRACT
For many people, the term pidgin describes what is commonly perceived as 'broken' speech. A pidgin will allow diverse speakers to communicate but the very fact that it needs to be used reflects and maintains the socio-cultural and linguistic differences that obtain among its speakers. A pidgin is a contact language formed from the meeting of at least two mutually unintelligible systems. It may begin life as a secondary hybrid or jargon created primarily for specific types of communication between groups that already have native languages. One of the more specific issues on which pidgins and creoles have impacted is that of language transmission. It has generally been assumed that the 'handing down' of a language from generation to generation takes place smoothly in a stable speech community. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
