pidgin

noun

pid·gin ˈpi-jən

Synonyms of pidgin next

: a simplified speech used for communication between people with different languages

pidginization

ˌpi-jə-nə-ˈzā-shən

noun

pidginize

ˈpi-jə-ˌnīz

transitive verb

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The History of Pidgin

The history of pidgin begins in the early 19th century in the South China city of Guangzhou. Chinese merchants interacting with English speakers on the docks in this port adopted and modified the word business in a way that, by century's end, had become pidgin. The word itself then became the descriptor of the unique communication used by people who speak different languages. Pidgins generally consist of small vocabularies (Chinese Pidgin English has only 700 words), but some have grown to become a group's native language. Examples include Sea Island Creole (spoken in South Carolina's Sea Islands), Haitian Creole, and Louisiana Creole. The word pidgin also gave us one particular meaning of pigeon—the one defined as "an object of special concern" or "accepted business or interest," as in "Tennis is not my pigeon."

Examples of pidgin in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

These examples are automatically compiled from online sources to illustrate current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Eventually, my family became adept at speaking a pidgin of English, Korean, and Japanese. —

Victoria Song, The Verge, 18 Apr. 2024 Teni’s music is often optimistic, if not in its lively production, then in her lyrics about the trials and triumphs of love and life, sung in Nigerian pidgin, Yoruba, and its Ondo dialect. —

Mankaprr Conteh, Rolling Stone, 21 Nov. 2023 The dialogue in both sections, sprinkled like parsley with pidgin Yiddish and Hebrew prayer, has a secondhand aura that is also unconvincing. —

Jesse Green, New York Times, 16 Feb. 2023 Ijaw, pidgin and Yoruba in addition to English. —

Yomi Kazeem, Quartz Africa, 9 Dec. 2020 See all Example Sentences for pidgin