a question for nuncle jim, our resident linguist: is there any useful distinction to be made between the terms creole and pidgin?

jumping in (where i have no place to be..but has that ever stopped me?)

a creole is a language (made up by children) using elements of 2 or more language.

a pidgin is a communications system, with no established grammer, that uses vocabulary of 2 or more languages. Pidgins are crude, and exist only to perform specific tasks.. (ie, someone might speak a pidgin at work, but goes home to native language)

Creoles grow out of pidgins, and are real languages, with rules of grammar (that can be recognized, even if they are not formally established). Creoles use words from several languages, and also make up new words (that are not in either language)

Childen of the people who speak the pidgin, mingle, and at first use the pidgin.. but in short while (a generation) the pidgen evolves into a creole (but many also know the original language of parents, (and might speak it at home with parents) but as creole speakers become parents, they speak creole at home (with their children ) as well as in public (market place, work, etc)

the pidgin 'dies out" or only spoken by the newest of immigrants, (and only for a short while)

Pretty much what Helen said. A creole is a nativized pidgin, and a pidgin is a simple artificial language for elementary communication (link and link. Though saying that children create it makes it sound too volitional. The pidgin in the mouth of babes changes and develops to become more complex grammatically. Tok Pisin (link and link) is a New Guinean creole which has been studied extensively. At least one linguist, Theo Vennemann, thinks that Germanic derives from a non-Indo-European-based (or Old European) pidgin that developed into a Creole. IIRC.

Thanks nuncle..
Tsuwm managed to find one of my pot holes of knowledge..
(my knowledge, general speaking, is Miles wide, and microns deep.. with a pot hole or two (or two dozen) and one or two (if that) sink holes..

Does this mean that despite its name Solomon Islands Pijin is not a pidgin? Books and magazines are published in it so does that make it a creole called "Pijin" and not an actual pidgin?

Solomon Islands Pijin is not a pidgin?

Long story short it used to be a pidgin and the name stuck. {I]Pijin[/i] (along with Bislama) is related to Tok Pisin. According to the SIL Ethnologue (link) it has about 25K first language users and around 300K 2nd and 3rd language users. That makes it a creole in my opinion, but it also states that it is in the process of creolization. You might want to read Dell Hymes, Robert Hall, or John McWhorter on pidgins and creoles. (Cf. the confusion in calling many of the Chinese languages, e.g., Mandarin, Hakka, or Cantonese, dialects when they are in fact languages and mutually unintelligible.)

It's like trying to distinguish between a language and a dialect, or the latter and a cant, jargon, or patois. (Famously) a language is a dialect with an army and a navy (link). Patois is a French synonym for dialect, and a cant or jargon is a specialized vocabulary used by certain groups, e.g., soldiers, thieves, IT professionals, antique dealers.

>Bislama, etc.

this is, in fact, what triggered my question!

An example of Bislama is the national anthem of Vanatu, Yumi, Yumi, Yumi (link), the title of which uses the inclusive first person plural pronoun yumi 'you and I' as opposed to mifala 'that person and I' which is exclusive of the hearer (link). The pronominal system also has dual and trial numbers as well as singular and plural.