Pidgins are makeshift languages that arise when people who have no common language come into contact with each other. They are attempts of people who speak one language (superstrate) to communicate with people who speak another language (substrate). The major superstrate languages are English, French, Portuguese, the languages of the former major colonial powers. Most of the vocabulary and some of the grammar of pidgins come from these superstrate languages. Substrate languages come mostly from the colonies of the superstrate languages.

Establishment of plantation economies in the Caribbean, with large groups of slaves from different language backgrounds who came from West Africa, gave rise to a number of pidgins based on English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese. However, there are also pidgins spoken in parts of Africa, South America, and southeast Asia that are based on languages other than those of the colonial powers. A good example of a non-European pidgin is the Chinook Jargon that was once used by American Indians and European traders in the Pacific Northwest.

Incidentally, the word pidgin has nothing to do with birds. The word, first attested in print in 1850, is thought to be the Chinese mispronunciation of the English word business.

Status
Because of their limited function, pidgin languages usually do not last very long, rarely more than several decades. They disappear when the reason for communication diminishes, as communities either move apart, one community learns the language of the other, or both communities learn a common language (usually the official language of the country). For instance, the pidgin Russian spoken in Manchuria disappeared when Russian settlers left China after World War II. The same is true of pidgin French which disappeared from Vietnam after the French left the country.

However, this is not always the case. Chinese Pidgin English(Chinglish), developed in the 17th century in Canton, China, survived for three centuries. Its use spread from master-servant relationships to those between English and Chinese traders and bureaucrats. It continued in use until about the end of the 19th century, when the Chinese started to learn standard English.

If a pidgin survives, and the next generation of speakers learns it as their first language or if it becomes a stable lingua franca, it becomes a creole.

Pidgin languages are used exclusively for oral communication. Only after pidgins develop into creoles does the need for writing arise, and orthographies are subsequently devised.

Pidgin and creole languages
Stanford University Green Library Pidgin and Creole languages
Pidgin in Wikipedia