verb
- past tense and past participle of pidginise; to reduce or simplify (a language) into a pidgin, or to express in pidgin form
Usage: chiefly British spelling (American: pidginized); linguistics term; often used in historical or descriptive contexts
Examples
- The colonial traders pidginised English to communicate with local populations.
- Over time, the language was pidginised as speakers from different backgrounds mixed.
- Linguists studied how the original vocabulary had been pidginised in the contact zone.
- The text shows how English was pidginised in the Pacific islands during the 19th century.
- Early merchants pidginised their speech to facilitate trade with indigenous peoples.