It is argued that pidgin and creole languages, despite the fact that they sometimes developed thousands of lies away from each other, show a number of similarities. If we consider any aspect of these languages - phonology, morphology etc. - we find that even those which are not based on the same languages show similarities in their structure. What is also argues in this connection is that sometimes these features are unique to pidgin and creole languages, thus it is no way the case that they are only deformed varieties of the languages from which they derive.