Contact language/Related Articles

Parent topics

Linguistics [r]: The scientific study of language. ^[e]
Sociolinguistics [r]: Branch of linguistics concerned with language in social contexts - how people use language, how it varies, how it contributes to users' sense of identity, etc. ^[e]
Multilingualism [r]: The state of knowing two or more languages, either in individuals or whole speech communities. ^[e]
Creolistics [r]: The study of creole and pidgin languages. ^[e]

Lingua franca [r]: Any language used for widespread communication between groups who do not share a native language or where native speakers are typically in the minority; name from 'Lingua Franca', a pidgin once used around the Mediterranean. ^[e]
Pidgin (language) [r]: A language with no native speakers and relatively few uses, created spontaneously by two or more groups with no common language, using vocabulary and grammar from multiple sources; often a pidgin's grammar is rudimentary, and it has a restricted set of words, but in time they can develop into more complex 'expanded' pidgins with many more functions. ^[e]
Creole (language) [r]: Native language, such as Haitian Creole, which under most definitions originated as a pidgin (a rudimentary language without native speakers, created by at least two groups of speakers as a contact language. i.e. to allow immediate communication) but became as complex as any other language through being acquired by children as a first language. ^[e]
Speech community [r]: Add brief definition or description