Maritime Polynesian Pidgin

Maritime Polynesian Pidgin
Native to	Cook Islands
Region	Pacific
Era	18th–19th centuries
Language family	Tahitian-, Māori- and Hawaiian-based pidgin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	mari1446

Maritime Polynesian Pidgin was a Polynesian-based pidgin that was the main contact language for European exploratory and whaling expeditions to the Pacific during the 18th-19th centuries. It would later be supplanted in that role by Pidgin English, which developed after the 1870s.

According to Drechsel (2014), some segments of the Tahitian, Māori and Hawaiian languages were grammatically similar and mutually intelligible. With European exploration, these forms would have merged into a regional contact language that would later be used for trade with Polynesian populations, and also on board ships, between European and Polynesian members of the crews, in preference to English. ^[1]

See also

• Pidgin Hawaiian
• Pitkern
• Norfuk

References

1. Drechsel, Emanuel J. (2014). Language contact in the early colonial Pacific: Maritime Polynesian Pidgin before Pidgin English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9781139057561.