To keep this rolling, in what I'm working on now there is a language called "Pastoral Pidgin/Slang" or by those who use it "P-say or P-speak." Initially as I wrote this I decided to check the official definition of a 'pidgin language' in that I was afraid 'my take' on it was wrong... However, the Wikipedia definition fits perfectly, so here it is;
A pidgin, or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from several languages. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the country in which they reside (but where there is no common language between the groups). Fundamentally, a pidgin is a simplified means of linguistic communication, as it is constructed impromptu, or by convention, between individuals or groups of people. A pidgin is not the native language of any speech community, but is instead learned as a second language.
A pidgin may be built from words, sounds, or body language from a multitude of languages as well as onomatopoeia. As the lexicon of any pidgin will be limited to core vocabulary, words with only a specific meaning in lexifier language may acquire a completely new (or additional) meaning in the pidgin.
Pidgins have historically been considered a form of patois, unsophisticated simplified versions of their lexifiers, and as such usually have low prestige with respect to other languages.
Without going into it too much, I kept in mind that it would be made up of virtually every language that might be found in the N.E.-U.S., Caribbean, Canada... any dialects, accents (phonetically), etc.. In a nutshell, anything and everything the world over with the degree of influence determined by the 'non-merged' rough population percentage.
Confusing? Not at all! Instead of approaching it as though I had to wade through all of these languages, find commonalities and so on... I instead took the approach that 'English is the dominating language. All other languages simply add to it (or more true whittle it down) dependent upon the word's simplicity and what it 'inferred' to me at first blush. So, that meant 'anything and everything' was available to me.
From experience, I also realized that much of any form of pidgin, even dialects is 'slang.' Finally, softer slang derivatives of expletives tend to make up a portion of dialects. So essentially, instead of trying to rigidly formalize some new language, I would loosely do as any group does when they come up with their own 'lingo.' I would try to be cute, clever, sarcastic, vulgar, and ALWAYS keep in mind 'SIMPLIFY.'
The easiest way to simplify is, have 'a word' mean many things dependent upon its context. Ex.:
Bitty – little, few, small
Bob – big, a-lot, many, large
Fancy – fancy, nice, high quality, expensive
Flat – sure, firm, positive
Words could also be emphasized by using adjectives and adverbs attached onto them. As an example:
Yacha – understand?
Bobyacha – absolutely clear/straight/understand
Bittyyacha – kind/sort of understand
So why not use "
Flatyacha?" Because first off it doesn't roll of the tongue (which is a big part of slang). Secondly because 'just because,' no other reason, I chose to have certain words like Bob and Bitty work as modifiers and not others.
Remember, this is 'your language.' As long as you can have it make sense, develop rules and reasons that fit 'your culture,' and the rules 'you set down,' and flow, why sweat it?
Don't get me wrong...
I'm sure a linguist is going to tell me that I'm just making up "kinder Englisch," but if you think about it, that's what a lot of slang really is.
Anywho, I reckon I've bored you folks enough with my nonsense. Next time I'll try and explain how I'm applying it in my stories.
K2
of the readers. Quite often responding how it inspired them to get into the story more, once they caught on.
