pidgin English

Originally a trade jargon developed between the British and the Chinese in the 19th century, but now commonly and loosely used to mean any kind of ‘broken’ or ‘native’ version of the English language.

Pidgin is believed to have been a Chinese pronunciation of the English word business. There have been many forms of pidgin English, often with common elements because of the wide range of contacts made by commercial shipping (see pidgin languages). The original pidgin English of the Chinese ports combined words of English with a rough-and-ready Chinese grammatical structure. Melanesian pidgin English (also known as Tok Pisin) combines English and the syntax of local Melanesian languages. For example, the English pronoun ‘we’ becomes both yumi (you and me) and mifela (me and fellow, excluding you).