Ghanaian Pidgin English: Diachronic, Synchronic & Sociolinguistic Perspectives

Pidgin has been defined with different criteria by various authors. Two of these criteria are social and structural. The social criterion is that a pidgin arises out of the need for a language as a means of communication when people who do not have a common language come together. The structural criterion is that a pidgin is comprised of reduced structures that evolve to serve as a means of communication. This book is devoted to a literature review on the definition and etymology of pidgin and creole. Definitions to acquaint the reader with these two concepts are presented, which will help to decide whether the language variety being discussed in this work is pidgin or creole, or if it is something entirely different. See more