Language Variation

Edward Sapir (1954) maintains that language is purely human and non-instinctive of communicating ideas,emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.
Human language is a rare blessing from above. Unlike the language of animals, it is highly complex. It is system of systems. It always remains on the move. Its variations are of multifarious (various/numerous) steps. Some of these variations are mentioned as follows:

1. Pidgin
2. Creole
3. Dialect
4. Idiolect
5. Register
6. Diglossia
7. Jargon/argot
8. Slang
9. Euphemism
10. Taboos
11. Lingua Franca
12. Isogloss

Pidgin:

It is sort of lingua Franca. It is a variety of a language that developed for some practical purpose, such as trading among people who had a lot of contacts, but who did not know each other's language. As a contact language, pidgin would have no native speakers. Some linguists hold the view that pidginisation probably requires a set-up that entails at least three languages, one of which dominant over the others. There are between 6 and 12 million people still using pidgin language.
Chinese pidgin is a combination of items Chinese and English. TokPisin is a pidgin used as a unifying language common among speakers of much different language in Papua, New Guinea. Similarly Nigerian Pidgin English is strange blend of English and other African languages.

Characteristics of Pidgin:

1. Limited vocabulary. A lexical comprised largely of two or more categories N & V .e.g Sik is used for be sick and disease. 
2. Lack of word formation rules in the lexicon.
3. Use of temporal and modal expressions. e.g. Baimbai ______by and by.
4. A subject + verb + object word in a sentence. e.g. You go store.
5. Uncomplicated clausal structure i.e. no embedded clause. 
6. Reduction of consonants clusters.
7. Use of basic vowels line /ə/,/i/,/ɔ:/.
8. Absence of stylistic variants.
9. Absence of any complex grammatical morphology. Inflectional suffixes such as -s(plural) and -'s(possessive) on noun as in standard English are rare in Pidgin while structures like 'tu buk' (two books) and 'di gyal pleis'( the girl's place) are common.
10. The origin of many words in Pidgin can be phrases from other languages. 
11. The syntax of Pidgin can be quite unlike the languages from which terms were borrowed and modified, as can be seen in this example from an earlier stage of "Tok Pisin" (Pidgin)

Baimbai (by and by)         hed ( head )    bilongyu (belong you)      i-arrait (he-alright)        gain (again)        

"Your head will soon get well again".  

To sum up the whole debate, pidginisation is the process towards simplification, reduction and restriction of language. There are about six to twelve million people that are still using Pidgin languages like Tok Pisin, Bislama etc.

Creole:

When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact language and becomes the first language of a social community, it is described  as a Creole. The process whereby a pidgin turns into a creole is called Creolisation. Hence the first speakers of pidgin become the native speakers for the next generation. In other words, creole becomes the first language of the children of the native speakers. It has standardized vocabulary, syntax and sound system. For example, in Jamaican (West Indies), people speak English based creole. Similarly, creole are in use in Haiti, Jamaican (a state of the West Indies) etc.
Creole is comparable to other languages as regards their functional and formal shape.

Features of Creole:

Creole is usually characterized by:

1. Use of little inflectional morphology. e.g. I am, he is, you are.
2. Use of strict SVO word order. e.g. I've got everything.
3. Use of one 3^rd person .e.g. pronoun he=she. He is beautiful. She is ugly. 
4. Use of inflectional suffixes. e.g. They've got my books. 

Decreolisation:

It is the hypothetical phenomenon whereby overtime Creole languages reconverge with one of the standard languages from which it originally derived.
Typically the language with higher prestige will exert a much greater influence on the lower prestige language.

Post-Creole Continuum:

It is usually the case that there is not one standard variety of the Creole to which all speakers confirm, but that there is a continuum of varieties ranging from the least lexical variety known as the basilect to the most lexifier like highly prestigious variety known as the acrolect with the intermediary levels known as mesolect.
This range of varieties spanning the gap between basilect and acrolect is called a Post-creole Continuum.

Dialect:

The form of a language that is spoken in one area with grammar, words and pronunciation that may be different from other form of the same language. It is a sub ordinate variety of language within "standard language".
The speakers who belong to different groups or different geographical region speak different dialects of the same language. For example, the language of the People of Waziristan in Pakistan speaks a dialect which is a variety of Pashtu speaker in Peshawar. When the speakers of one dialect group fail to understand the speakers of another dialect group, then these dialects become different language. For example, Texas English, Cockney English, Australian English etc. are the varieties of English.

Dialects are of three types

I) Personal Language Habits
II) Social Factors
III) Situation of Use

Personal Language Habits:

Idiolectal diversity is "an inevitable result of the productivity inherent in every single individual's linguistic habits".
Personal linguistic habits such as voice, vocal and verbal habits, attitudes to speech and write, intonation pattern, fluency and inherited vocal features affects individual's speech. Politeness and the use of fillers also reflect personal language habits.

Social Factors:

Idiolect is affected from social factors such as socioeconomic group, age, educational level, gender, profession, experience; manifest themselves in the configuration of an individual's idiolect. Moreover, there are other factors such as bilingual and multilingual which affect an individual's speech.

Situation of Use:

An individual may make use of several different idiolects, speaking one way at home and another way at work. There is gradation of speech , from the very formal to the informal. e.g. Going for a job interview, one way say to a secretary, 'excuse me, is the manager in his office, I have an appointment'.
Alternatively, speaking to a friend about another friend, one may produce a much less formal version of the message.

Register:

A register is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific context, which may be identified as situational (e.g. in church), occupational (e.g. among lawyers) or topical (e.g. talking about language). A register is a restricted code of social behavior. These mostly indicate the use of professional language. For example, doctors, lawyers, pilots, engineers, teachers etc use registers.
There is a difference between dialect and register. Registers are varieties of languages according to use, whereas dialects are varieties of language according to users.

Diglossia:

In diglossia, there is a "low" variety, acquired locally and used for everyday affairs, and a "high" or special variety , learned in school and used for important matters. 'Two different varieties of language co-occur in a speech community'.
The two varieties are kept apart from each other. There is a strong tendency in a diglossiac community that one of the languages/dialects is given a higher status. The high variety is used for offices, formal lectures, delivering sermons, political speeches etc. The low variety (L) is used for a non-specialized daily activities. Use of diglossia is common where the society is multilingual, for example, in Canada people speak English as well as French. Sometimes, the speakers may code switch from one language to the other. Also they may have code mixing. In Saudi Arabia , Arabic has two varieties , colloquial and classical. Classical Arabic is a high variety which is spoken in offices or any in formal settings, but colloquial Arabic is used in informal settings. 

Jargon/Argot:

1. Jargon is a special technical vocabulary associated with a specific area of work or interest.
2. In social terms, jargon helps to create and maintain connections among those who see themselves as "insiders" in some way and to exclude "outsiders".

For example, "juggling eggs" indicates a computer term in linguistics line phoneme, lexes, morpheme, phrase etc are instances of jargon/argot.
In computer, we say ROM (read only memory) RAM (random access memory). However, it is important to note that many Jargons pass into standard language.

Slang:

Slang or colloquial speech is more typical words or phrases that are used among younger speakers and other groups who are outside established higher-status groups.
Every one of us uses slang at one or other occasion. Its words may be rough. These slangs are often restricted to special contexts. These are used by a particular group of people. For example, soldiers, criminals, children, drug pushers etc.
The use of slang varies from generation to generation. For example, 'apples and pears' in Conkey mean 'stairs'. 'shit' is a swear word showing anger. The word "shit" means solid waste matter.
NOTE: The word slang itself is slangy in British English for "scold".

Euphemism:

It indicates a word or a phrase that replaces a taboo word or avoids frightening. For example, we use 'pas away for death to avoid death phobia'. We use the expression 'users for' taxes.

Taboos:

Taboos are forbidden words or offensive expressions. For example, the word 'bloody' in English considered a taboo. In the past the word 'woman' in English was a taboo, since it meant female of low society. The word 'taboo' was borrowed from "tongan" a Polynesian language. Through taboos, people express their hatred and disapproval of certain kinds of behavior considered to be harmful to them.

Lingua franca:

It is a language used for communication between two or more groups whose native languages are different. For example, English is used as lingua franca in different provinces. Similarly, "Swahili" is used by speakers of many different local languages of east Africa. The term "Lingua Franca" was first used for a pidgin based on French and Italian developed in Mediterranean. Then a Lingua Franca may also be a pidgin. For instance, the Malaysian, pidgin is widely spoken in the south pacific.

Isogloss:

An Isogloss , also called a heterogloss. According to Gleason (1963) "isogloss is a line indicating the degree of linguistic change." It separates the areas in which language differs with respect to a given feature. For example, in the upper Midwest of the U.S.A, in one area, people use the word "paper bag" where as in other area people use the word "paper sack". It is possible to draw a line across the map indicating language differences. This line is called "isogloss" . When several isoglosses are coincided, it is called a dialect boundary.