41 3. Pidgin and creole languages word meaning “people.” As it may be noticed from the above divagations, the given possible etymological roots of the term pidgin are inconsistent, i.e. they might be derived from different languages: Portuguese, Chinese, Cantonese, Hebrew, and also from different words, e.g. people, trade, business. This fact, according to Mühlhäusler, “[…] is most in agreement with the nature of pidgin languages. Because they emerge as vehicles of intercommunication between speakers of many different languages […]” (1986: 1). The languages which now bear the label of “pidgin” existed long before the name was invented, e.g. Mediterranean Sabir, Lingua Franca, Pidgin Portuguese or the languages of the Third World. All of them, however, were born out of contact situations among people speaking different languages. These contact situations mostly included trade and barter. Thus, Mühlhäusler (1986: 3) suggests that one accept the popular view of a pidgin as “a structurally reduced trade language.” Similarly, Reinecke is of the opinion that trade was the most frequent contact level of early-stage pidgin creation, and he states that pidgins [o]riginally […] arise out of the casual intercourse of traders (generally seamen) with a fixed population, although later they may be extended to serve the intercourse between the native population and resident foreigners who for some reason do not learn the native language. (1938: 110) This brief and abrupt contact between people is reflected in the nature of a pidgin. 3.2. DEFINITIONS OF THE TERM PIDGIN The context of language use defines its nature. If a language is used for temporary purposes to fulfill the immediate communication needs of the speakers, it is characterized by simple grammatical structures and a rudimentary lexical stock. According to Crowley, [l]anguages designated as pidgins range from extremely rudimentary shortterm contact languages used only in a very narrow range of contexts to structurally and lexically far more expanded varieties which have been in use over an extended period and for a much broader range of functions, even though in each case there may be a shared lack of native speakers. (2008: 75) The different stages of pidgin development depend on the frequency of contacts between the people who use it, and the lexical layer reflects the purposes of mutual communication. Attempts to define the nature of pidgin
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