University of Bucharest

Romanian Pidgin Arabic can be quite straightforwardly assigned to
Bakker‘s (1995) work force pidgins. On the other hand, Sebba‘s (1997) typology
needs to be extended so as to include a class of oil industry pidgins 17 .
Another well-known typology (Mühlhäusler 1997) seeks to classify pidgin
languages on purely linguistic criteria and distinguishes three developmental
stages: (i) prepidgin 18 ; (ii) stable pidgin; (iii) expanded pidgin 19 . Each of these
phases is characterized by a specific set of phonological, morphological, syntactic
and lexical diagnostic features.
Now, at various points in this paper I have noted similarities between
Romanian Pidgin Arabic described and other pidgins. In the table below I
compare Romanian Pidgin Arabic with three pidgin languages, generally
considered to be representatives of the prepidgin stage: Russenorsk and two
English-lexified pidgins, Butler English and Pacific Pidgin Englishes. The latter is
a cover term for non-specified varieties of Pidgin English spoken in the Pacific in
the 19th century. The table is based on data from Broch and Jahr (1981) for
Russenorsk, Hosali and Aitchison (1986), Mehrotra (1999) and Hosali (2005) for
Butler English, Mühlhäusler (1997), and Tryon and Charpentier (2004) for Pacific
Pidgin Englishes. With one exception, the diagnostic features are those suggested
by Mühlhäusler (1997). I have added ―non-productive reduplication‖, proposed by
Bakker (1995 and 2003), who explicitly states that this feature is typical of
expanded pidgins. In the table, the sign ―+‖ shows that a feature is attested and
―−‖ that it is not; the absence of relevant information is indicated by blank spaces.
(29) Comparison of selected diagnostic features
Feature Romanian Pidgin Russenorsk Butler Pacific Pidgin
Arabic
English Englishes
inter-speaker variation in phonology + + + +
minimal personal pronoun system + + +
copula − − − −
conjunctions, complementizers − −
one-preposition system + + +
non-productive reduplication + +
multifunctionality + + + +
tense and aspect markers − − − −
coordination with adverb + +
iconic paratactic structures + + + +
small size of core vocabulary 150 150-200 NHJE 50-100
SPPE 300
17 To which the pidginized Gulf Arabic described by Smart (1990) could also be assigned.
18 Alternative names include ―jargon‖ and ―minimal pidgin‖.
19 Also called ―extended pidgin‖.
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