The New International Encyclopædia/Pidgin

PIDGIN (Chinese corruption of Eng. business), or Pigeon English. A mixed language much in use in the ports of China, as a medium of oral communication between foreigners who cannot speak Chinese (merchants, sea-captains, sailors, etc.) and such Chinese servants, shopkeepers, compradores, boatmen, etc., as they may have to converse with. It is also occasionally used by natives from different ports whose own dialects are so different as to be mutually unintelligible. It consists of a mixture of English words, mostly monosyllabic, with corrupted Chinese, Portuguese, Malay, and other terms and expressions, arranged according to Chinese idiom. These words are “uninflected” except to the extent that vowel-endings such as o or ee are frequently added after certain consonants which the Chinese in common with the Japanese are unable to pronounce without a following vowel; for example: washee for wash; largee for large; s'posee for suppose; wifo for wife. Owing to the inability of the Chinese to pronounce initial r, l takes its place, and ‘rice’ becomes lice; ‘American’ becomes Melican; ‘friend’ becomes flen’, and ‘try’ becomes tli. Among the corrupted Chinese words are bobbery, noise, disturbance, abuse, scold, either noun or verb, as “you makee too muchee bobbery”; “how fashion you bobbery my?” Chop is a mark, brand, or device; chop-chop means ‘quick! make haste!’ and the same chop occurs in chop-sticks or ‘hasteners’ used in eating. Chow-chow means food or eat; and maskee (probably of Malay or Portuguese origin), ‘never mind! no matter!’ Belong takes the place of ‘be’; my is equivalent to I, me, my, mine (“no belong my” = I didn't do it, or it is not mine). Savey means ‘know’; ‘not’ is replaced by no, and the opening sentence of Hamlet's famous soliloquy, “To be or not to be! That is the question,” is simply rendered by “Can do, no can do! How fashion?” Joss-pidgin means religious ceremony, and Joss-pidgin man, a priest, clergyman, or missionary. In the same way a tourist or sightseer becomes a look-see man, and ‘get’ is expressed by catchee. Consult Leutzner, Wörterbuch der englischen Volkssprache Australiens und der englischen Mischsprachen (Halle, 1891).