Expansion may occur without a language acquiring a community of native speakers, in which case we might technically speak of depidginization rather than creolization in characterizing the changes.
- Romaine (1988), Pag. 117

Sankoff and Laberge [Sankoff, G. – Laberge, S. 1973. “On the acquisition of native speakers by a language”, Kivung 6: pp. 32-47 ] use the terms creolization and depidginization synonymously. This serves to emphasize the point that it is difficult to study pidgins and creoles as two separate phenomena rather than as two aspects of the same linguistic process.
- Romaine (1988), Pag. 116-117