**** Pidgins -- patterns of continuity and change

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Pidgins that have been formed from the sudden dislocation (usually geographical, but not necessarily so) and mixing of heterogenous populations seem to be more provisional early on. If there is a continued need for a pidgin, most often because of continued arrival of newcomers, it may stabilize somewhat. This was perhaps the case in Atlantic societies where natural increase was not achieved. If a pidgin stabilizes in an environment where both continued immigration and child-rearing are occuring, then what is a stable pidgin to some adults may be expanded by children acquiring it. This is the scenario Gillian Sankoff and Suzanne Laberge have described as "the acquisition of native speakers by a language." in reference to Tok Pisin's gradual expansion to the position of a fully functional language without the speech community ever crossing a threshhold from pidgin to creole. Of course, this hides the positions of individual speakers, who acquired the language either as adults or as children.

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Sankoff and Laberge, Acq of Native Sp by a language"

Siegel for Fiji Islands