Liberian Pidgin English is one of the pidgin languages created in West Africa in the region of Liberia. Polysemy is also one of their prominent characteristics. This way Pidgins present a limited vocabulary and in most cases do not use grammatical markers. A Pidgin language is simpler than other languages since it is created to serve a specific purpose and thus has the limited vocabulary and grammar functions that are necessary for that purpose. However grammar is more influenced by the vernacular language, the substrate (Holmes & Wilson 2017: 92). It has been found that if a prestigious language is involved then this language is the superstrate, that is, the one which contributes most of the vocabulary. Because Pidgin Languages are created as mixtures of different languages they feature characteristics from every language involved in their creation but it’s not rare for some original characteristics to be created as well through its use. Another theory is that the word Pidgin was created from two distinct Chinese characters “pei” and “tsin” which have the meaning of paying money (Holmes & Wilson 2017: 90). The term may originated from the word “business” as pronounced in the Chinese-English Pidgin or the word “pidjom” that also means trade in Hebrew (Holmes & Wilson 2017: 90). The origins of the term Pidgin are not definite but various theories about its coinage exist. If it acquires native speakers by children growing up having the specific language as their native language, then it is categorized as a Creole language (Rickford 2003: 224). A Pidgin language is one that has no native speakers. Most often a Pidgin facilitates people that want to trade or serves as a way of understanding between settlers and natives in cases of colonization. Pidgin languages are often created to serve one specific purpose.
Investigating the case of a Pidgin: Liberian Pidgin EnglishĪ Pidgin language is a language created from the need of people with different native languages to communicate.
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