What are Creoles and Pidgins? And What`s the Difference? 

I'm pretty sure my 2 year old nephew and I have a pidgin language going on.

I am Haitian-American (grew up in New York City) and I was so surprised when I did college study abroad in Madagascar that I understood and could communicate with native speakers from Reunion, Mayotte, and Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. The creole they spoke was almost exactly like Haitian Creole.

let's be honest here; you're awsome

There's a somali/cockney/arabic/jamaican mixture language being developed in London right now believe it or not. Its been developing for years

I live in Singapore and people here speak Singlish. It's not officially recognised but it's considered a creole language. The government has tried to discourage its use in the past but I think now they just gave up XD

BRAVO!!! I'm from Jamaica, so I speak Jamaican Creole (Patwa) and there has been much that has been done in recent years to educate Jamaicans on the FACT that Jamaican Creole is in fact a distinct language from English; It's a Creole of English, various West African languages, and bits of Spanish and Portuguese for good measure. Unfortunately, many very old-fashioned Jamaicans still consider it "bad English" based on the brainwashing done by the former colonial power (England). Nevertheless, it is a LINGUISTIC FACT that Jamaican Creole is a Creole language of the Western Atlantic. Thanks for this video! It was really outstanding!

In XVII century there was a Basque-Icelandic pidgin: a creole would have been awesome!

Pidgin English is basically how Nigerians survive with all those languages

not everyday i go on youtube and actually find what i was looking for, thanks heaps! this was sooooo helpful and i loved the easy to understand examples :)

I never knew the difference between pidgins and creoles until today. I've already subbed to your RU-vid channel... you rock, Paul, and have a NICE day!

I speak French and trying to work on learning Haitian Creole. It is surprising how easy for me to learn the language already knowing French.

Thank you sifu, you saved my time for understanding this pidgin and creoles. I have SOCIOLINGUISTICS exam tomorrow. And I bet there is a question about this topic! Have a good day, sir ;)

You just KISS it. Thank you so much for explicitly short content

Would you say that English is a Creole between old Germanic languages and French?

Man! You've just saved my life! I'm supposed to deliver an essay about this and I was lost in concept 'til I found your video. Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Thumbs up!

wow, thanks so much for this simple explanation! AND I was finally able to find a song that I had been looking for for years - when I watched your video I realised the song was in Bislama and was able to find it, so again, thank you @Langfocus.

Hey Paul, I've been a big fan of the channel for a long while and just wanted you to know that we had to watch this video in a college class I'm taking now. It's about teaching second languages and it has a mix of seniors and grad students. Keep up the scholarly-good work!

Well, In my country Cameroon, the ''pidgin language'" has a total different meaning. Since the country has 2 equal dominant languages from the colonial period (french and english, sometimes German), it is made up, not only of both of these languages, but also with the mix of native bantu languages. Example: ''Je wonder si t'as nieh ce coma'' ( I'm wondering if you have seen this movie). So, what should we name this mixture? ''Super pidgin''??? =))))))

Thank you so much for making this video, it has helped me so much getting through a hard part of my essay for school!

What a great explanation. This makes this topic easier to understand. Thank you very much!

Excellent! This was actually one of the topics that I've discussed in our Phd class. I'm taking up applied linguistics by the way. One common characteristic of pidgins and creoles is that, its structure is based on L1 but its lexical supply is from L2.

I am from Sierra Leone we speak english in school,but we speak krio on the streets

You have so many fantastic videos on this channel. I use them in several of my university courses. Thanks for all the hard work that goes into your channel.

currently studying for my CSETS and this has helped me out considerably. I appreciate ya!

I thought this was great! I teach an Intro to Sociolinguistics Course. The students found this video VERY HELPFUL. Nice job at explaining the difference between Creole and Pidgin languages.

That was wonderful. I am such amazed with your way of explaining. No one could teach it better.

Big help for our report! Thank you!😊

Langfocus thank you so much for this. Very informative!

Great video! I love the amount of effort you put in your videos, they are very informative and well done.

Hey Paul, I love your videos! I am a fluent Spanish speaker, conversant in several other Romance languages, and I am conversant in Marshellese, the language of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a group of 32 coral atolls in Mirconesia (North Tropical Pacific). But my favorite language is Solomon Islands Pijin (Pijin), which is the lingua franca spoken in the Solomon Islands, where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Pijin is virtually identical to Bislama, which is spoken in Vanuatu to the east, and to the Pidjin spoken in Papua New Guinea, to the west. Papua New Guinea Pidjin has many more Melanesian words that are intrinsic to the language, and a very strong bending of the pronunciation which make it more difficult to understand. I'll tell you one thing, Pijin is a fun language for partying! Because everyone has their own "home language" for all of the serious stuff like family relationships and nuanced emotion, Pijin is mostly used outside the house, and it has only has about 1500 words. It is therefore very easy for everyone to learn, native English speakers (like me) need only learn the Melanesian grammatical structure, and Melanesians need only learn 1500 English borrow words, that they can plug into their comfortable grammatical structure. And voilá, everyone's talking! In Peace Corps, the first thing we did was spend 6 weeks living with a local family, where we got intensive language and cultural training. I picked up Pijin in about three days, and with a few grammatical rules under my belt, I could pretty much guess how to say just about anything, But then, there were the funny; "gotcha" words, that made Pijin a fun - as in funny - language, and a great language to party in. Jokes and songs, like the Solomon Islands equivalent of Yankee Doodle, called "Wakabauti Long Sainatowni" or Walkabout Chinatown. are just a blast to sing, and feel like sugar in your mouth. And then there are the words themselves. Most are borrowed from English, and most keep their English meaning. But many take on a different meaning. For example "nating"in Pijin sounds like nothing, but it means never. And to say "nothing" in English, one says "no eni samting", from no any something. So to say "I never see you anymore because I have nothing to give" one would say "Mi nating lukim iu moa, fram mi no garem eni samting fo givim long iu". Ah, music to my ears! Tanggiu tumas fo mekem lesin ia. Bae lukim iu.

I really love how this is so simple,thank you! You are awesome

this was very informative, clear and straightforward! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your so instructive videos. I've been browsing them since today morning and haven't stopped yet. As a speaker (L1) of Cape Verdean Creole, I was very glad to find a video about Creole languages. But then, I got sad, you forgot to mention Portuguese-based Creoles... The Creole languages with the bigger number of speakers are Haitian Creole (+ 12,000,000 speakers), Jamaican Creole (+ 3,000,000 speakers) and Cape Verdean Creole (+ 1,000,000 speakers). Very accurate, your description of the transition from Pidgin towards Creole. However, it may lead to the (still) widely spread misconception that Creole languages are "simple" languages (or "simplified" versions of the Lexifier language). It depends of what grammatical subject we are analysing. I can show several examples where the Lexifier languge is more complex than the Creole language, but also examples where the Creole language is more complex than the Lexifier language. If you need any help about Portuguese-based Creoles, in general, or Cape Verdean Creole in particular, I'll be glad to help.

I'm very happy you did a video of creole languages. As a speaker of Papiamento (a creole language that is a mixture of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, and Amerindian languages), and in my opinion one of the coolest and most unique languages in the Americas, I wish more people had a knowledge of unique creoles.

This is so fascinating, I would like to see you make a language on sociolect, thank you! Your videos really inspired me to take up linguistic in my University.

I enjoy these 'universal' insights you provide, along with the specifics. It provides a framework of understanding the nuances of language vs dialect and the sub dialects, along with the interrelationships

In an earlier video you told about the Sri Lankan Portuguese Creol. Despite being Sri Lankan I never realized this language existed until a while ago. Thank you very much langfocus.

Thanks for the video,its very helpful 😊😇

You explained it so well! Great work!

You're being so helpful with your amazing videos 😍 thank you so much 🙏🙏

I'm an English-speaking Cameroonian and we speak a Pidgin that's sort of similar to that spoken by Nigerians (due to geographic proximity). There are several other variations spoken in Sierra Leone, Ghana,Liberia etc

This was very helpful..thank u so much

Amazing video! I learned something new. Thanks a lot for your videos, Paul. I love them!

Very Informative. Nice work Paul.

As a speaker of Pidgin (Hawaiian Creole), I got really excited when I saw this video.

I traveled to Vanuatu in 2010. Besides Bislama, if I was in Port Vila they understood English better but as soon as I travelled around the island of Efate more people understood French. It was incredible how easy it was for someone like me (who at the time knew only English) to read all of the signs and understand the basics of what they were trying to tell me.

I have a test in two days and you literally saved me! I couldn't tell the difference between both ternes but you made it so clear! Thanks a lot!

Haitian isn't the only French creole out there...there's creole from Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana

You're a life saver sir

You've explained the two variations of languages very welll. Good job.

Very helpful! Thanks for this video.

I've been interested in Pidgins and Creoles since I was high-school student, nearly half a century ago. I found they're so fascinating and amazing because they show us the very moments the new languages are going to be born. I imagine that, in some two thousand years ago or more without any letters yet, old origins of Japanese language might have been born among our ancestor as pidgins and creoles....

This is awesome. I just learned that what is popularly know as pidgin English here in Nigeria, is really Creole. And it is widely spoken throughout the country, more than the lingua franca - English. And in a country of over 120million people it may very well be the most widely spoken Creole there is. It's worth researching.

super helpful, this was a great description of both, i appreciate it

Excellent video, thank you for explaining the distinction between pidgins and a creoles using case studies. Really shows the evolution and the vibrance of living languages.

Speaker of Hawaiian Creole here! lol

Hi! Very nice video. However, I believe, you should have explained in greater detail how pidgins change becoming creols: how the complexity of their grammar increases, new patterns of word-formation evolve, their vocabulry expands, etc. I am suggesting this because, I think, some people might have gotten a wrong impression of creols being "simple" languages; I know, you mentioned that, in order to become a creole, a pidgin must spread to everyday life outside of initial work/business context... but still, you should have put it a little more explicitly:). Thank you!!!

Thank you for this very well and clearly explained video!

Great video... You explained this perfectly. This supplemented my reading nicely.

My native language is a Spanish based creole language called Papiamento. It is spoken on 3 Dutch Caribean islands, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. It's official language since the 1990's, aside from Dutch. Because of Dutch as my second native language, it's not difficult to learn and to pronounce with ease all Romance, Germanic and Slavic and basically languages using the a, e, i , u pronouncuation. Like Chinese, Japanese, Malay and tribal languages. But as you pointed out it's not as easy as 1, 2, 3, I have to study hard like everybody else. But I have an advantage because I have no big problem to pronounce words in diffent languages well. Not wanting to brag put this proves a point that knowing one language makes it easier to learn a sister language. e.g. because of knowing Dutch I have no difficulty with the 'kh' sound in Semitic languages. My native language has influences and lonewords from different languages like Iberian and Germanic languages as well as Amerindian languages.

Just so you know, the creole spoken in the eastern Caribbean is different from Haitian Creole. However they can understand each other. Also know that the creole spoken in Mauratius is the same creole as the eastern Caribbean even though they are thousands of miles apart

Grazie! So useful! Tomorrow I'll show this video to my students! Very well explained!

very clear and concise explanation. congrats!

I love watching your videos. Iam from Papua New Guinea and have to say your video on the country with many languages was incredible and i thankyou for it coz we are a small country in the South Pacific. I can speak 3 of our main languages including my mother-tongue called Toaripi and that of my father-law's called Mailu, so in all i speak 5 languages of the 800+ here in PNG. Here English-Pidgin is referred to as Tok Pisin and yes it is a trade language that started during the time of Dutch colonies in the northern part of our island nation. The sentence "I have already been to town in Tok Pisin will read " Me go lon taun pinis". Us Melanesian countries i.e. Solomon Isl, Fiji, Vanuatu n New Caledonia have our unique forms of pidgin where we can understand certain words of the same meaning or context. Anyway, like i said i really enjoy and always look forward to your videos. God Bless 😊

thank u so much to explain in such a precise way...... now I totally know what pidgin nd creole is...... peace and love for u.....may mother nature bless u

Thank you, this was such a great explanation.

Awesome as usual Paul

nice work!

That is amazing. Here in Brazil, Creole refers also to the language as to the people who used it in the past. For me, the most amazing about this, is the fact that i didn't know that Creole was a language. In portuguese we use the word "crioulo" or "criolo", sadly commonly used to the african decendents, in a pejorative way.

I have been searching for infromation on creol from wikipedia but I learnt much more here in this video than anywhere else so far... awesome man

Most of your videos are really help me as students, thanks a lot

Make a video about Spanglish, Portuñol or Svorsk.

Thank you sir! You explain it smoothly and it didn't confused me to understand.

I just watched your video first time & just subscribed your channel. That's so helpful mayn. Keep doing great things ✌️

Jopará is probably the biggest creole currently developing in South America, the mixture of Guaraní and Spanish, in Paraguay.

Portuguese has its creole, spoken in islands of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. Different between them, they are the language de facto of those countries, and first language of their immigrants in Portugal. A Portuguese speaker cannot understand spoken creole, but it is comprehensible when reading. There is also a (extinct?) pidgin in Macao, called patuá and a creole in Malaka Straight, Malaysia. Ladino, or judeo-spanish, spoken by the Jews from Spain and Portugal in Thessalonika, Turkey and Amsterdam, is pretty well understood by a native Portuguese.

Thank you so much! Your video has helped me a lot :)

Very interesting and informative, thank you!!

I remember that you have used the "pidjin" term before) And I was wondering what you were talking about, maybe as an adjective "Pigeon" means something like "Fancy" or "Stylish" (In Russian there is a word "Pijon" (Пижон) or as an adjective "Pijonskiy" (Пижонский) that means "Showy" and really have an origin in French word "pigeon"). This is really funny how my brain figured it out and made me believe than I am right XD

I remember Chavacano. It may be a pidgin first, then developed into a creole language.

Beautifully explained. Thnx a lot.

What a great deal of information ! Thank U very much 👌

I speak a Malay creole called Manado Malay here in North Sulawesi, Indonesia! :)

When I was in Haiti last year I thought I was going to be able to communicate a little because I knew basic French. However, Haitian French is NOT French lol. It was much easier reading signs than it was talking to locals too since the grammar and words were more closely related to French (but have very strange spelling)

Amazing! The things I learn here. I love this channel.

Thank you for this amazing explanation

Pidgins have been stripped down so far that they really don't qualify as languages anymore. A creole is the next step from a pidgin, a fully functional language. An example of this is Hawaiian Pidgin. It was created when people from China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico were put on plantations to work with Portuguese formen. No one spoke each other's language so they would communicate with single words and short phrases and no real grammar. That was the pidgin. for their kids who grew up together and wanted to communicate like normal human beings that wasn't good enough. They filled in the gaps and turned it into a fully functional language. It's called Hawaiian Pidgin but in reality it's Hawaiian Creole English. Also, creoles lack prefixes and suffixes because those things take time to accumulate and creoles are simply too young to have acquired them.

I'm from Cabo Verde, off the coast of Senegal. Supposedly, our Creole (Kriolu/Kriol) is the oldest in the world, the closest relatives being Creole from Guinea Bissau (pretty much completely mutually intelligible) and Papiamentu from Curaçao, with varying degrees of intelligibility. Here's an example of our language (The Santiago Island variant - each one of the 9 inhabited islands has got its own. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-979o9hWCtq0.html

You make it clearer now, thanks a lot.

This is really helpful. Thank you.

can you do a video on the moroccan (darija) language/dialect or arabic. its mixed with Berber, French, Arabic, Spanish and English (more recently). I i want to know if its a separatr language or actually still classed as a dialect of arabic

I just thought of something. Since English evolved after the Norman Conquest when French was mixed with Old Anglo-Saxon, does that mean it could be considered a Creole?

Very well explained! Thank u

Thank you so much for the clear explanation and the examples!

Can you do a video on unusual languages, like Cherokee or The African Bantu languages that have clicking sounds? Also, what's the difference between Hawaiian and Native New Zealand Māori language?

良い動画。うぽつ

Wow! Never knew this before. Thank you for breaking this down.

You've made things so simple.. Easy to catch. Thanks :))))

What about Portuguese based creoles?

hi Paul. I am a Jamaicana "Creole/patwa" (I'm sure you'll get around to it for day) speaker. from that perspective, "Mi bin long taon finis" looks a little different to your interpretation. The "long" could be "long ago" like. "I went to town long since". Or as Jamaicana might say. "Mi done Gaan a town" maybe even adding "Lang time" for "good' measure. "Him ya has blong mi" would translate as. "Dis yah house a fi mi" or "A fi mi yard dis". think you're doing a great job. I'm an older head, long time out of school and due to a messed up British school system, never had access to grammar, do some of the academic tend you use eg preposition, personal pronouns, indefinite article, verb conjugation etc. it would be great to get a video explaining some of these academic phrases. Is that even possible or would I have to go sit in some yung pickny class fi ketch up?