PIDGIN ENGLISH.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue V, 24 July 1897, Page 156

PIDGIN ENGLISH.

Thk * New Review' hu an entertaining article by Colonel W. J. Shaw on * Canton English,’ which lets the ordinary reader into the mysteries of * pidgin.' The appalling difficulty of the Chinese colloquial is the stumbling-block, and in onr settlements upon the eoast of China it may be said that, patting aside a few persons in office at eaeh plaee upon whom its study is imposed, not more than one in fifty Englishmen seriously attempts to learn the language, and not more than one in two hundred succeeds in mastering its intricacies after months, and even years, of study. A popular method of communication had, therefore, to be found by whieh the European residents might converse with their servants, give orders to tradesmen, and generally transact business with the natives who surround them.

The Englishman who rushes to the Far East as fast as steam can take him, experiences while hurrying through the ports and stations on bls route, a series of surprising effects from the numerous languages and dialects with which he is greeted, and of which, let his memory be as retentive and his ear as correct as they may, he can carry away no more in each case than a passing and vague impression. Landing at Hong Kong in a boat pulled by voluble Chinese women ; surrounded on the Praya by a crowd of yelling, pig tailed coolies, each desirous of appropriating to himself the profit and honour of carrying his luggage, foreign devil though he be ; hustled by a phalanx of basket-batted chair bearers more desirous of fighting for his custom than careful of the sanctity of bis person, he at length arrives at the house of his expectant friends—for in no part of the world does a generous hospitality so certainly supersede the necessity of resorting to a public hotel for entertainments as in the colony of Hong Kong. Here he is received by another type of native, the celebrated Chinese ‘boy,’ or body servant, with neat dress of white or blue, according to the season, carefully oiled and plaited pig-tail swinging to his heels, and smooth shaven face and crown; and here he is conscious through it all that, around him and to him, English accents of some kind are being

uttered for and by the natives, not one particle of the sense of whieh be can himself understand. English of some sort it most certainly is. and be catches a familiar word here and there. But what kind of English ’ And why and how is it that everyone present appears to comprehend it except himself ? On his first arrival his entertainer probably tells Mie dignified celestial who does duty as butler to * Catehie that tiffin ehop ehop ’ (let us have luncheon at once), whieh is answered by a serious •Just now eatchie ’ (I will get it at onee.) As tiffin is announced, the lady of the house appears and welcomes the guest. A faintly-heard infantine cry from upstairs disturbs her serenity during luncheon, and she dispatches an attendant pig-tail to see wbat is the matter, with the direction impertnrably given, ‘ That piecie ehilo makee bobbery, looksee what thing* (go and see what baby is crying about). Onr new acquaintance lifts his eyebrows, struggle as be may to obey his Horace and be astonished at nothing in this part of the world. He has scarcely brought them down again when the * boy ’ returns with a message from the * amah ’ or nursemaid. * Amah talkee that smalo have chow chow one piecie cockoloaeh * (nurse says baby has swallowed a cockroach), adding, however, to soothe the anxious mother, as she hurries from the room, ‘Just now he number one, he tommy have eome topside.’ The host interprets to his friend that Nature has effected a cure for the child’s abnormal appetite, and adds, • 1 see you are puzzled by our • Pidgin English. ’ In a few days, however, yon will begin to piek it up, and in a month you will not only speak it, but, what is more difficult, understand it when spoken by a native.*

In effect, Canton, or • Pidgin,’ English, as it is more usually called, is the familiar dialect and ordinary medium of communi* cation between foreigners of European or American nationalities and the Celestial inhabitants of the Settlements in China. At Canton and the various coast settle* merits, the Chinese have regular schools and classes in which it is taught ; and it is believed that similar arrangements exist, P n< ter the rose, in our colony of Hong Kong The vocabulary of Pidgin is made up of

three classes of words—(l) words purely English ; (2) words purely Chinese, a very small proportion ; and (3) words of doubtful parentage, mongrels bred of various Eastern and European languages. The English words, however, are usually pronounced in sueh a manner as to render them not easily recognised at first hearing. Also they are not altogether and invariably applied with their original meanings, one word often doing duty in many ways. Take, for instance, the word ‘Pidgin,’ so much used as to have given the best known and the most popular name to the dialect. * Pidgin * is nothing but the word * business,* as supposed to have been first pronounced by the earliest essayers of English at Canton, and as faithfully pronounced to-day. * Pidgin,’ then, means literally business, trade, occupation, or duty.