| Chinese Pidgin English | |
|---|---|
| Chinese Coastal English, Pigeon English | |
| Region | China,Northern Australia andNauru |
| Era | 17th–19th centuries survives inNauruan Pidgin English |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | cpi |
| Glottolog | chin1253 |
| Linguasphere | 52-ABB-da |
Chinese Pidgin English (Cantonese:廣東番話)[1] (also calledChinese Coastal English,[2]Pigeon English,[3] orChinese Coast Pidgin[1]) was apidgin languagelexically based onEnglish, but influenced by aChinesesubstratum. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, there was also Chinese Pidgin English spoken inCantonese-speaking portions ofChina. Chinese Pidgin English is heavily influenced by a number ofvarieties of Chinese with variants arising among different provinces (for example inShanghai andNingbo).
The English language first arrived in China in the 1630s, when English traders arrived in South China. Chinese Pidgin English was spoken first in the areas ofMacao andGuangzhou (City of Canton), later spreading north to Shanghai by the 1830s.[4] "Yangjing Bang English" (Chinese:洋涇浜英語;pinyin:Yáng jīng bāng yīngyǔ) derives from the name of a former creek inShanghai nearthe Bund where local workers communicated with English-speaking foreigners in pidgin (broken English);[5]Yangjing Bang has since been filled in and is now the eastern part ofYan'an Road, the main east–west artery of central Shanghai.
Historically, it was a modified form of English developed in the 17th century for use as a trade language orlingua franca between theEnglish and theChinese. Chinese Pidgin started inGuangzhou, China, after the English established their first trading port there in 1699.[5] Pidgin English is a mutual linguistic project developed between Chinese and foreign traders. Specifically, it arose under the sociopolitical circumstances where theQing empire only allowed limited contact between foreign English trade agents and Chinese "Hong" guild traders.[6] Though Chinese Pidgin English only identifies English as itslexifier language, the prior contact of thePortuguese with Canton in 1557 established a prototypicaljargon. This Chinese-Portuguese jargon eventually developed into pidgin English as the number English traders rose while Portuguese traders declined.[7] The term "pidgin" itself is believed by some etymologists to be a mispronunciation of the English word "business" by the Chinese(see:Pidgin § Etymology).[8][6]
Chinese Pidgin English began to decline in the late 19th century. Multiple reasons caused its decline. One reason is the common association of Chinese Pidgin English to the low social status of Chinese servants in comparison to their English-speaking masters.[7] After theSecond Opium War, the influx of English traders and resources to learn English encouraged the Chinese to acquirestandard English. This process was further catalyzed bycosmopolitanism and concurrently English-Chinesebilingualism inHong Kong, and displacement of the original community afterWorld War II.[9] Concurrently, the introduction of standard English education in the country's education system further discouraged the acquisition of Chinese Pidgin English.[10]
Chinese Pidgin English spread to regions beyond the Chinese Coast. Many attestations of the language being spoken come from writings of Western travelers in China. Among these are scattered reports of the pidgin being spoken farther inland, such as inChungking (Chongqing) andHankow (Hankou), and farther north, inKyong Song (Seoul) and evenVladivostok.[11] Chinese Pidgin English was also taken beyond Asia: the large numbers of speakers inNauru influenced the shaping ofNauruan Pidgin English,[12] and there is evidence that it was also taken toAustralia, where it altered due to the influence of Australian English and other pidgins.[13] It is also reported to have been spoken inSingapore andJava.[14]
Kim (2008) says that there is debate among linguists, including Baker, Mühlhäusler, and himself, about whether or not CPE was taken toCalifornia by 19th century immigrants. Many features present in California Chinese Pidgin English overlap with features of CPE, but also overlap with many other pidgins. Furthermore, some diagnostic features of CPE are missing or different from California Chinese Pidgin English. On the other hand, because many migrants came from theCanton province in China, where CPE was relatively well-known, it is likely that many migrants to the United States from China had knowledge of the pidgin. At the very least, it is clear that California Chinese Pidgin English should be treated as a distinct variety from CPE as spoken in Coastal China, because it has morphological and syntactic features not found in CPE.[15]
Robert Hall (1944) gives the following phonemic inventory:
| Consonants | Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| Plosive | pb | td | kg | ||||
| Affricate | t̠͡ʃd̠͡ʒ | ||||||
| Fricative | fv | θð | sz | ʃʒ | h | ||
| Approximant | w | l | ɹ̠ | j | (w) |
| Vowels | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Near close | ɪ | ʊ | |
| Close mid | e | ə | o |
| Open Mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Near Open | æ | ||
| Open | a |
Native speakers of English use this inventory. Because most lexical items in CPE are derived from English, native English speakers simply use the pronunciation familiar to them. For non-native English speakers, who were largely Cantonese speakers, [v, θ, ð, r, ʃ, ʒ] are not present, because these sounds are not present in Cantonese.[16]
Hall also describes a few morphophonemic alterations. Many verbs ending in consonants may optionally add a vowel, as in [tek(i)] 'to take' and [slip(a)] 'to sleep'. Words ending in [r] and [l], and sometimes [d], optionally omit the final consonant, as in [litə(l)] 'little' and [mo(r)] 'more'. Certain stems also frequently lose their final consonant when before certain suffixes, as in [hwat] 'what?' ([hwasajd] 'where?', [hwatajm] 'when?', [hwafæʃan] 'how?'), [ðæt] 'that' ([ðæsajd] 'there'), [awt] 'out' ([awsajd] 'outside').[17]
Baker and Mühlhäusler point out that Hall's data was taken entirely from native speakers of English, several decades after CPE was widely used. For this reason, they are skeptical of the data presented.[18] Nonetheless, their own presentation of phonology in CPE is largely the same as Hall's. They state that [s] and [ʃ] were not phonemically contrastive for Cantonese speakers. Words ending in [f] in English often had an added [o] as inthiefo. Aside from these additions, Baker and Mühlhäusler have few revisions to make to the phonological claims Hall made.[19]
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Constructions in Chinese Pidgin English, both at the phrase level and sentence level, vary widely in taking English or Chinese structure. Generally speaking, pidgin languages have isolating morphology and so do not inflect nouns and verbs; CPE is no exception.[20] Some morphological and syntactic phenomena, which frequently appear in linguistic literature, are listed below.
| [1] | Subject | Object | Independent Pronouns | Adnominal Possessives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1sg | my, I, me | my, me | my | my |
| 2sg | you | you | you | you, your |
| 3sg | he, she, it | he/him, she/her, it | he/him, she/her | he/his, she/her |
| 1pl | we | us | ||
| 2pl | you | you | you | you, your |
| 3pl | he, they | he, them | he | he |
Prior to 1800, pronouns conformed largely to British and American English paradigms. Over time,my came to be the only first person singular pronoun in CPE, replacing bothI andme.He was used for subject and non-subject referents alike (Baker and Mühlhäusler 1990: 104). Plural pronouns were expressed as in English by native English speakers;[21] there is too little data from native Cantonese speakers to determine if they pluralized pronouns.[22]
In CPE, once a noun has been explicitly stated, it does not need to be stated again in following sentences where that item would normally be found. This means that in a given sentence, the subject or object may be omitted. In the example below, "very poor people" is the subject for the following clauses, although they do not explicitly state it.
The omitted noun may also be loosely related to the predicate, rather than a subject or object. In the sentence below, meaning "He won't sell at that price", the omitted "that pricee" is neither a subject nor an object.
A word derived from Englishhave was the usual copula in CPE until 1830. It usually appears ashab orhap.Belong is also used. After 1830 it became most common to omit the copula entirely.[25]
("Chinese men are real rogues but that's how it is, can't help it.")[26]
This lexical item seems to have been an influence of Cantonese grammar on CPE. Cantonese usesclassifiers on nouns described by a number or demonstrative. The wordpiecee is used where Cantonese would expect a classifier.Chop is another classifier, used only in demonstrative constructions.[27] Places where Cantonese does not use a classifier, as with the words for "year" and "dollar", likewise do not have a classifier in CPE.[28]
The majority of the words used in CPE are derived from English, with influences from Portuguese, Cantonese, Malay, and Hindi.
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Certain expressions from Chinese English Pidgin have made their way intocolloquial English ascalques. The following is a list of English expressions which may have been influenced by Chinese.
| Chinese Pidgin English[1] | Interlinear gloss[1] | English[1] |
|---|---|---|
| He Talkee he to got muchee pidgin | 3sg talk3sg got too much pidgin. | He says he is very busy |
| You makee enquire he, can talkee you. | you2sg make enquire enquire he3sg can talk2sg | If you enquire of him, he will tell you |
| Me thinkey you one very good man, one man what know justice and law. | 1sg think2sgart very good manart man what know justice and law | I think you are a good man, one who knows justice and the law |
| He tinkee so my go singsong girlee night-time | 3sg thingcong1sg so singsong girl night-time | She thinks that I go to visit singsong girls at night |
Media related toChinese Pidgin English at Wikimedia Commons