TRADE JARGONS AND CREOLE DIALECTS AS MARGINAL LANGUAGES.

This article focuses on the use of makeshift language in case of a compulsory interaction between men of two different languages. When men of different languages are thrown into contact and must reach an understanding, four courses are open to them. If their contact is brief and discontinuous and limited to very simple transactions, speech may be dispensed with. Members of two linguistic groups may speak a third language which they have already learned in other contacts, i.e., a lingua franca. Members of one group may learn efficiently the language of a second group. But there is a fourth possible course, which may leave a permanent mark upon linguistic and social history. Neither group may be in a position to learn the other's language or a common third tongue at all correctly, so that both will be content with an imperfect approximation to one of the languages: a debased or pidginized or jargonized form, a minimum or makeshift language. On a small and temporary scale the use of makeshift language is a universal phenomenon, to be witnessed wherever immigrants, invaders, tourists, or sailors go.