Chinese Pidgin English (also called Chinese Coastal English[1] or Pigeon English[2]) is a pidgin language lexically based on English, but influenced by a Chinese substratum. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, there was also Chinese Pidgin English spoken in Cantonese-speaking portions of China. Chinese Pidgin English is heavily influenced by a number of varieties of Chinese with variants arising among different provinces (for example in Shanghai and Ningbo).
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 of Macao and Guangzhou (City of Canton), later spreading north to Shanghai by the 1830s.[3] "Yangjing Bang English" (Chinese: 洋涇浜英語; pinyin: Yáng jīng bāng yīngyǔ) derives from the name of a former creek in Shanghai near the Bund where local workers communicated with English-speaking foreigners in pidgin (broken English);[4] Yangjing Bang has since been filled in and is now the eastern part of Yan'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 or lingua franca between the English and the Chinese. Chinese Pidgin started in Guangzhou, China, after the English established their first trading port there in 1699.[4] Pidgin English was developed by the English and adapted by the Chinese for business purposes. The term "pidgin" itself is believed by some etymologists to be a corruption of the pronunciation of the English word "business" by the Chinese (see Pidgin § Etymology).[5]
Chinese Pidgin English began to decline in the late 19th century as standard English began to be taught in the country's education system.[6]
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 in Chungking (Chongqing) and Hankow (Hankou), and farther north, in Kyong Song (Seoul) and even Vladivostok.[7] Chinese Pidgin English was also taken beyond China: the large numbers of speakers in Nauru influenced the shaping of Nauruan Pidgin English,[8] and there is evidence that it was also taken to Australia, where it altered due to the influence of Australian English and other pidgins.[9] It is also reported to have been spoken in Singapore and Java.[10]
Kim (2008) says that there is debate among linguists, including Baker, Mühlhäusler, and himself, about whether or not CPE was taken to California 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 the Canton 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.[11]
Robert Hall (1944) gives the following phonemic inventory:
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.[12]
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').[13]
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.[14] 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 in thiefo. Aside from these additions, Baker and Mühlhäusler have few revisions to make to the phonological claims Hall made.[15]
The majority of the words used in CPE are derived from English, with influences from Portuguese, Cantonese, Malay, and Hindi.
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.[17] Some morphological and syntactic phenomena, which frequently appear in linguistic literature, are listed below.
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 both I and me. 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;[18] there is too little data from native Cantonese speakers to determine if they pluralized pronouns.[19]
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 English have was the usual copula in CPE until 1830. It usually appears as hab or hap. Belong is also used. After 1830 it became most common to omit the copula entirely.[22]
("Chinese men are real rogues but that's how it is, can't help it.")[23]
This lexical item seems to have been an influence of Cantonese grammar on CPE. Cantonese uses classifiers on nouns described by a number or demonstrative. The word piecee is used where Cantonese would expect a classifier. Chop is another classifier, used only in demonstrative constructions.[24] Places where Cantonese does not use a classifier, as with the words for 'year' and 'dollar,' likewise do not have a classifier in CPE.[25]
Certain expressions from Chinese English Pidgin have made their way into colloquial English, a process called calque. The following is a list of English expressions which may have been influenced by Chinese.
Media related to Chinese Pidgin English at Wikimedia Commons