the atlas of pidgin and creole language structures

Often these languages branch off of once-dominant colonizing countries, and will, as a result, have a base in languages popular in these countries like English, French, and Portuguese. These pidgin languages are developed as a way for people with no shared language to communicate with one another and often mix together vocabulary and grammatical structures to create a wholly new method of communication.

When populations of people with different languages come together and mingle together for whatever reason, a common, more improvisational, second language called a pidgin can come into being. One of the best examples of how environmental circumstances and situations particular to a certain place and time can affect language is with the Creole languages, which refer to a wide subset of languages rather than any specific one. Languages from all corners of the world are constantly evolving and changing, adapting new terms, new linguistic structures, and new methods of communication at a constant pace, at least when compared to other societal institutions. Languages are complex things that, despite their rules and seemingly fixed-in-place nature, are actually much more flexible than they initially appear.

The atlas of pidgin and creole language structures