I now turn to Pidgin-English. As is well known, this is the name of the jargon which is very extensively used in China, and to some extent also in Japan and California, as a means of communication between English-speaking people and the yellow population. The name is derived from the Chinese distortion of the Engl. word business. Unfortunately, the sources available for Pidgin-English as actually spoken in the East nowadays are neither so full nor so exact as those for Beach-la-mar, and the following sketch, therefore, is not quite satisfactory.[50]
Pidgin-English must have developed pretty soon after the first beginning of commercial relations between the English and Chinese. In Engl. Studien, 44. 298, Prick van Wely has printed some passages of C. F. Noble’s Voyage to the East Indies in 1747 and 1748, in which the Chinese are represented as talking to the writer in a “broken and mixed dialect of English and Portuguese,” the specimens given corresponding pretty closely to the Pidgin of our own days. Thus, he no cari Chinaman’s Joss, hap oter Joss, which is rendered, ‘that man does not worship our god, but has another god’; the Chinese are said to be unable to pronounce r and to use the word chin-chin for compliments and pickenini for ‘small.’
The latter word seems now extinct in Pidgin proper, though we have met it in Beach-la-mar, but Joss is still very frequent in Pidgin: it is from Portuguese Deus, Deos (or Span. Dios): Joss-house is a temple or church, Joss-pidgin religion, Joss-pidgin man a clergyman, topside Joss-pidgin man a bishop. Chin-chin, according to the same source, is from Chinese ts’ing-ts’ing, Pekingese ch’ing-ch’ing, a term of salutation answering to ‘thank you, adieu,’ but the English have extended its sphere of application very considerably, using it as a noun meaning ‘salutation, compliment,’ and as a verb meaning “to worship (by bowing and striking the chin), to reverence, adore, implore, to deprecate anger, to wish one something, invite, ask” (Leland). The explanation given here within parentheses shows how the Chinese word has been interpreted by popular etymology, and no doubt it owes its extensive use partly to its sound, which has taken the popular fancy. Chin-chin joss means religious worship of any kind.
Simpson says: “Many of the words in use are of unknown origin. In a number of cases the English suppose them to be Chinese, while the Chinese, on the other hand, take them to be English.” Some of these, however, admit now of explanation, and not a few of them point to India, where the English have learnt them and brought them further East. Thus chit, chitty, ‘a letter, an account,’ is Hindustani chiṭṭhī; godown ‘warehouse’ is an English popular interpretation of Malay gadong, from Tamil giḍangi. Chowchow seems to be real Chinese and to mean ‘mixed preserves,’ but in Pidgin it has acquired the wider signification of ‘food, meal, to eat,’ besides having various other applications: a chowchow cargo is an assorted cargo, a ‘general shop’ is a chowchow shop. Cumshaw ‘a present’ is Chinese. But tiffin, which is used all over the East for ‘lunch,’ is really an English word, properly tiffing, from the slang verb to tiff, to drink, esp. to drink out of meal-times. In India it was applied to the meal, and then reintroduced into England and believed to be a native Indian word.
XII.—§ 5. Grammar, etc.
Among points not found in Beach-la-mar I shall mention the extensive use of piecee, which in accordance with Chinese grammar is required between a numeral and the noun indicating what is counted; thus in a Chinaman’s description of a three-masted screw steamer with two funnels: “Thlee piecee bamboo, two piecee puff-puff, walk-along inside, no can see” (walk-along = the engine). Side means any locality: he belongey China-side now (he is in China), topside above, or high, bottom-side below, farside beyond, this-side here, allo-side around. In a similar way time (pronounced tim or teem) is used in that-tim then, when, what-tim when? one-tim once, only, two-tim twice, again, nother-tim again.
In one respect the Chinese sound system is accountable for a deviation from Beach-la-mar, namely in the substitution of l for r: loom, all light for ‘room, all right,’ etc., while the islanders often made the inverse change. But the tendency to add a vowel after a final consonant is the same: makee, too muchee, etc. The enigmatic termination lo, which Landtman found in some words in New Guinea, is also added to some words ending in vowel sounds in Pidgin, according to Leland, who instances die-lo, die; in his texts I find the additional examples buy-lo, say-lo, pay-lo, hear-lo, besides wailo, or wylo, which is probably from away; it means ‘go away, away with you! go, depart, gone.’ Can it be the Chinese sign of the past tense la, lao, generalized?
Among usual expressions must be mentioned number one (numpa one) ‘first-class, excellent,’ catchee ‘get, possess, hold, bring,’ etc., ploper (plopa) ‘proper, good, nice, correct’: you belong ploper? ‘are you well?’
Another word which was not in use among the South Sea islanders, namely have, in the form hab or hap is often used in Pidgin, even to form the perfect. Belong (belongy) is nearly as frequent as in Beach-la-mar, but is used in a different way: ‘My belongy Consoo boy,’ ‘I am the Consul’s servant.’ ‘You belong clever inside,’ ‘you are intelligent.’ The usual way of asking the price of something is ‘how much belong?’