Not only cao ooe language take over elements from another ene,but en entire1y new language cao emerge in situations of ianguage contact. In the field of pidgin and creole studies the rnain question is how, exactly, a new language cao come into existence, and how the particular grammatica! properties of the newly formed languages, pidgins and creoles, are related to the way in which they have emerged. A pidgin language is generally defined as a strongly reduced linguistic system that is used for incidental centacts between speakers of different languages, and that is the native language ofnobody (DeCamp, 1971). A creole language is a language that emerged when the pidgin had acquired native speakers.

The following parable, drawn from Bickerton (1975), can perhaps c1arify the subject matter of creole studies: A natural disaster destroys a family's home. They have to give it up, but theycan re-use a part ofthe debris to build up a new house. The resulting structure is something quite different from their original dwelling, and, due to rhe lack ofmaterial, also something rather different perhaps from what rhey had in mind. The children ofthe family grow up in ir and for rhem ir is the only house that they know. Years later some bigwig eernes along, who remarks that the house is not at all rhe way it should be and produces rhe construction plans that should have been used for the rebuilding of the house. A possible remodelling, however, has to take place while the family remains in the house. When the important visiror is gone again a quan-el breaks out concerning rhe question of whether, and ifso, how the remedelling must be eerried out. Finally everybody does something different. Whole rooms remain in their original state, ethers undergo drastic divisions.

This is the end ofthe parable. When you put ‘Ianguage’ for ‘house', sernething like rhe following picture emerges (partially based on work by Mühlhäusler, 1974):