In this linguistic fusion, the European languages provide most of the vocabulary and the indigenous languages provide the structure of the language. Pidgin, on the other hand, is a technical term in linguistics that refers to a “contact” or “trade” language that emerged from the fusion of foreign (usually European) languages and indigenous (usually non-European) languages. Now, since even native English speakers routinely violate the rules of their own language, tolerable grammatical errors can’t be regarded as “broken English.”

It should be noted, though, that uneducated or barely educated people in English-as-a-second-language linguistic environments can- and indeed do- speak or write broken English, while people who are well-schooled in English in English-as-a-foreign-language environments don’t speak or write broken English. Chinese and Japanese people) rather than people for whom it is a second language (e.g. “I will see you tomorrow” could become “Me is come see you tomorrow.” And so on.Īs it should be obvious by now, the people who are apt to speak or write broken English in the classical conception of the term are often people for whom English is a foreign language (e.g.

Two other popular names for broken English are “halting English” and “faltering English.” For instance, the sentence, “I want to see you” may be rendered as “me like see you” in broken English. And my short answer is no, although there are occasional overlaps between Nigerian Pidgin English and Nigerian English.īut, first, what is “broken English”? Well, it is a somewhat pejorative label used by native speakers of English to describe the often hysterical violations of the basic rules of Standard English syntax by non-native speakers of the language. Is Nigerian English the same as (Nigerian) Pidgin English or, for that matter, “broken English”? I have been asked this question many times.

Pidgin english examples