lexifier

plural lexifiers

1. human sciencesThe language of a pidgin or creole that serves as the basis for most of its vocabulary.

   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.

   2018, John H. McWhorter, The Creole Debate, Cambridge University Press, page 9