Direction: You have passages with 5 questions in each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
Pidgins are languages that are not, acquired as mother tongues and that are used for a restricted set of communicative functions. They are formed from a mixture of languages and have a limited vocabulary and a simplified grammar. Pidgins serve as a means of communication between speakers of mutually unintelligible languages and may become essential, in multilingual areas. A Creole develops from a pidgin when the pidgin becomes the mother tongue of the community. To cope with the consequent expansion of communicative functions the vocabulary is increased and the grammar becomes more complex. Where a Creole and the standard variety of English coexist, as in the Carribbean, there is a continuum from the most extreme form of Creole to the form that is closest to the standard language. Linguists mark off the relative positions on the Creole continuum as the ‘basilect’ (the furthest from the standard language), the ‘mesolect’, and the ‘acrolet’. In such situations, most Creole speakers can vary their speech along the continuum and many are also competent in the standard English of their country.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
pidgins : simple form of languages, especially english, Portuguese or Dutch, with a limited number of words, that are used together with words from a local language.
It is used when people who do not speak the same language need to talk to one another.
continuum : a series of similar items is which each is almost the same as the one next to it but the last is very different from the first.
-
A pidgin develops in a situation when
-
- different and mutually unintelligible languages exist side by side.
- a Creole becomes the mother tongue of a linguistic community.
- a language with restricted vocabulary undergoes an expansion in grammar and vocabulary
- two similar languages are mixed to create a new language.
Correct Option: A
different and mutually unintelligible languages exist side by side