ABSTRACT
This chapter deals not only with West Indian English and other forms of Atlantic Ocean English but also with English pidgins and creoles. English-based pidgins are found in the South Pacific: Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea, Bislama in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands Pidgin. In certain rather exceptional social circumstances, it can happen that a pidgin language acquires an importance over and above its use as a trading language or lingua franca. Probably a majority of English-based creoles, however, are spoken in the Atlantic Ocean area, where they are a result of the slave trade. The two most important of the Surinam creole languages are Djuka, or Ndjuka, and Sranan. The process of decreolization involved the creole languages undergoing differing amounts of complication and purification. A very different creole-like variety of English is spoken in two different locations in the Pacific Ocean area: Pitcairn Island in the remote eastern Pacific and Norfolk Island to the east of Australia.
