creole, pidgin

   A pidgin-the word is thought to come from a Chinese pronunciation of the English word business-is a simplified and rudimentary language that springs up when two or more cultures come in contact. If that contact is prolonged and the pidgin is the first tongue for generations, the language will usually evolve into a more formalized Creole (from the French for indigenous). Most languages that are commonly referred to as pidgins are in fact Creoles. The word pidgin, incidentally, has nothing to do with its near homophone from the feathered world, as was evidently thought here: "But to each other, and in pigeon half-Spanish to the Peruvian official..." (Sunday Times).