LING2040 Languages in Contact 3: The Nature of Pidgins
Pidgin: "a contact vernacular, normally
not the native language of any of its speakers… characterized by a limited
vocabulary and elimination of many grammatical devices such as number and gender."
Etymology: English business
and/or Cantonese bei cin
That belong he pidgin "That's his
Multiple etymologies in contact languages (Mühlhäusler)
Pidginization as second language acquisition by adults
- simplification: elimination
of inflectional morphology e.g. number, gender, tense
- limited vocabulary, semantic
transparency: Tok Pisin
‘thief’ (< steal man)
- first language transfer:
phonological features, syntax
Functions of pidgins: basic communication between groups
with various native languages
Limited social functions:
- trade, as in Bazaar Malay (bazaar
< Malay pasar "market"), Russenorsk (used between Russian and Norwegian
- workplace communication, as
in Fanakalo (used by mine workers in South Africa)
- tourism, as in
"English" used by tour guides in Thailand
Expanded pidgins: a further stage of development, e.g. Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea
(see lecture 5)
- expansion of functions to
include everyday communication between groups with different native
languages; newspaper Wantok (< one
talk) and the constitution of Papua New Guinea
- expansion of vocabulary,
3. China Coast
Pidgin or Chinese Pidgin English (CPE)
18th Century: the China
Trade in Macau and Canton
- Teaching of Chinese to
(Portuguese: "buyers") served as intermediaries and interpreters
- Pidgin English
developed with Portuguese influence (savee
19th Century: European settlements in south China
- The treaty ports (c.
1842-1949): Canton (Guangzhou),
Hong Kong, Amoy
- Chinese Pidgin English
developed for limited interaction between Chinese and Europeans
20th Century: demise of CPE
- Education in HK produced a
class of Chinese people able to speak more or less standard English
- Foreign settlements in
disbanded after 1949
- Pidgin last spoken in Hong Kong by Chinese 'black and white amahs '
and cooks in 1960s? extinct in 1973?
- Retired dock workers did not
remember any pidgin in 1990
- "Pidgin English"
in HK today: remnants of CPE, or re-creation of pidgin-like features?
3.2 Written records of CPE
CPE is like studying dinosaurs: it involves digging up occasional bones and
fossils, and fitting them together to make a composite picture (Selby & Selby,
1995. China Coast Pidgin English. Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society 35, 113-141.)
of CPE (Bolton, Chinese Englishes. Cambridge University
3.2.1 "Pidgin" verses as caricature
Ping-Wing see gentleum walo- go
He scleamee, 'Hai
yah -- fan-kwei lo!'
All-same you savvy in Chinese,
'One foleign devil lookee see!' (Leland, Pidgin-English Sing-Song,
Olom man talkey,
'No can walk!'
By'mby rain come--welly dark
Have got water, welly
Maskee! My wantchey
Topside-galow! (anonymous, cited in C. Elder, China's Treaty Ports, Oxford, 1999)
See also fictitious dialogue in Sebba:
Contact Languages, p. 68-9 (my catch dat
piece wifoo "I acquired this wife")
3.2.2 Historical: letters, travellers' memoirs, ships' logs
Capem, hab pilort?
("Captain, do you have a pilot"?) (Ball, B. L. Rambles in Eastern Asia. Boston,
Suppose he no small feet, no man wantjee make he
number-one wife. (Davidson, G. F. Trade and travel in the Far East. London, 1846)
I heard in conversation, the Chinese never allow themselves to be beaten.
They pretend to know already all you tell them, usually replying, ‘Can savey that pigeon, Pekin sye’.
(Smith, To China
and Back. London,
Letter from the sculptor Chitqua to three English
women he met in Oxford
"The two Wife-woman and the Single-woman Chin Chin Chitqua the China
gentleman - and what time they quiere flirt those
nice things truly never can forget for him. Some time he make voyage to Oxford,
Christchurch will then open his gates and make Chitqua
so welcome he no more tinkee go Canton again. There
he find much bisn as he so
well savee Art of Modelling
Heads, thing much wanted among Mandarinmen of that
place. Once more tankee fine
(Clarke, David. 2005. Chitqua's English adventure:
an 18th Century source for the study of China Coast Pidgin and early Chinese
use of English. Hong Kong Journal of
Applied Linguistics 10)
3.2.3 Phrase books in Chinese
Pidgin Phrasebook: Hongmao Tongyong Fanhua (c. 1850)
- Cantonese characters used
phonetically to indicate English pronunciation: '1' glossed as溫 wan1 ("temperature"), '10' =癲 din ("crazy"), 'me' = 米mai ("rice")
- 'China trade' terms no longer
used in English: mandarin, supercargo
- 'English' words also include Portuguese,
Hindi and Malay words (picul)
- Compare similar practice in
Chinese almanacs(通勝) today
The Chinese-English Instructor by K.S.Tong
- a phrase book using
Chinese characters to represent English
- additional entries in
margins give pidgin equivalents in Guangdong
faan waa (Canton pidgin)
- see sample in
3.2.4 Gweilo: Memories of a Hong
Kong Childhood by Martin Booth
- a memoir of Hong Kong
in the 1950s when CPE was still widely used between foreigners and Chinese
- Booth arrived in HK in 1952 at age 7, acquiring
pidgin English as well as Cantonese as a child
- Much of the dialogue in the book appears to be in pidgin:
'What you likee
you burfday cake, young master?'
'A cake,' I replied, puzzled by the enquiry, 'with nine
'What shape you likee? Maybe you likee
house?' he suggested, seeing my bewilderment.
'Likee tempul?' Wong can do tempul
good for you'. Without really thinking about it I answered,
'I'd like a battleship'. Several days later I went to the
kitchen to find my way barred.
'You lo can come kitchen-side now',
Wong declared. 'You wantee somefing, makee bell.'
as "rememberer" of the language 50
years later: his pidgin dialogues must be reconstructed based on his remembered
knowledge of CPE.
this is not so different from the other English-language sources, which
were mostly written some years after the authors' experiences with pidgin.
3.3 Structure of CPE (see sample text in Sebba,
p. 68, but beware of caricature)
- no distinction between
voiced and voiceless consonants: din "ten"
verbs in place of inflected verbs: whafo
no have see taipan sot langim?
of have/hab as an auxiliary: have
bring rice this voyage?
sentences with suppose: spose likee can do, spose no likee marsakee.
- use of makee as a ‘dummy’ or light verb: I
3.4 Chinese substrate influence
- Vocabulary: taipan "boss", cin-cin
- Loan translation: befoo tim wun moon "one month ago", numba wan ledda
"top quality leather"
- CV(C) syllable structure,
avoidance of consonant clusters: popa ledda "proper leather"
- No v, r or th sounds (very -> belly, that -> dat, think -> tinkee)
- null subjects (wanchee finis chopchop)
and objects (must liky or no liky)
- preverbal negation: no
- classifiers: one piece
wifoo "a wife"
- serial verbs: sen one piece cooly come my sop look see
"send a servant to come to my shop and see"; you sendee three dozen go my houso
"Send 3 dozen to my house"
- Placement of time adverbs:
he every day tipsy "He gets drunk every day"