lexifier
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
lexifier (plural lexifiers)
- (linguistics, lexicography) The language of a pidgin or creole that serves as the basis for most of its vocabulary.
- 2018, John H. McWhorter, The Creole Debate, Cambridge University Press, page 9:
- A great deal of linguistic evidence reveals that creole creators transformed the lexifier in a fashion unexplainable as just hybridization, but well known from studies of pidginization and second-language acquisition.