Intelligibility to the Reader/Speaker

The first, and most immediate, difference between dialects and creoles, or pidgins, is the intelligibility to the reader or speaker.  Dialects are largely intelligible to non-speakers, whereas creoles may be largely unintelligible to non-speakers.  It is easier to understand both dialects and creoles, as a non-speaker, when simply listening to the speaker as opposed to reading a transcription, because very often the words look strange on the page but sound familiar to the listener’s ear.  For example, the word oltageder from Tok Pisin, a Melanesian pidgin, looks strange, but when read out loud, it sounds very much like the Standard English word altogether.

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Map of Melanesia, which is near Australia

Amount of Language Mixture

Intelligibility is not the definitive distinguishing feature between dialects and creoles, however.  Some Scottish dialects are very hard to understand for an American, for example.  The difference between dialects and creoles, then, is often the level or amount of language mixture.  In the Tok Pisin, for example, the fundamental elements of the English language have been modified by Tok Pisin speakers.  Very often, creoles and pidgins are said to have a certain language as a base, so that Tok Pisin is an English-based pidgin.  This phrase means that the speakers have taken enough elements from the English language that English speakers (but non-speakers of Tok Pisin) see familiar elements in the pidgin. 

Tok Pisin Grammar

Scottish Dialects

Unlike a dialect, however, the differences outweigh the similarities, so that meaning is difficult but not impossible to understand.  For example, the verb ending in this pidgin becomes im for all verbs, so that they steal becomes tufela stilim (two fellows steal-im), and the possessive has become the word bilong (belong).  Creoles and pidgins have definite rules of usage and grammar, however, and so they are not simply “corruptions” of the English language–or any other language.  Rather, they are a product of language mixture with another language.

Pronunciation and Dialects

In a dialect, however, there may be strange words or words used differently, but, for the most part, the building blocks of the language stay the same.  The differences are mostly in pronunciation, such as the difference between the American migratory vs. the British migrat’ry, or vocabulary.  Although the Northeastern American dialect uses the word fountain or drinking fountain while the Northern Midwest uses bubbler, both dialects use ’s to denote possession and both dialects say they steal.

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A Sliding Scale

Overall, then, it is more a degree of difference rather than any hard and fast rule to use for the decision.  Dialects and creoles occupy a sliding scale of language classification, and sometimes it is difficult to decide just exactly where speech patterns should be placed.

International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA) Official Website