Chap, xvii.] PIGEON ENGLISH. 



359 



Kong. I tried the chair coolies with all kinds of explanations 

 and equivalents of " theatre " without success. At last I 

 stopped and got an old resident to explain. He simply said 

 " singsong walkey," and off went the coolies to the theatre at 

 once. As is well known, many of the words in Pigeon English 

 are Portuguese of ancient date; comparatively few are Chinese, 

 though the grammatical construction is all more or less 

 Chinese. 



The ordinary visitor using the strange words derived from 

 Portuguese usually imagines that he is employing a Chinese 

 word ; but if he asks a Chinaman who can understand him 

 well he will in return tell him to his astonishment that the 

 word is English. The Chinaman using Portuguese thinks he 

 is talking English, and the Englishman using the same thinks 

 he is speaking Chinese. 



It is not only the uninstructed who misapprehend the words 

 of the " Business English." I have often been amused in 

 looking at a specimen of a book full of engravings of various 

 Eastern deities, which is exposed amongst the manuscript 

 treasures in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and labelled in 

 Pigeon English " Pictures of various Josses." Joss is a Chinese 

 corruption of the Portuguese " Deos " (" God "). Most 

 persons suppose it is a sort of Chinese equivalent of the word 

 Idol. 



People going from China to Japan usually try to force 

 Pigeon English into the heads of the Japanese. The Japanese 

 language and its construction is of course utterly different 

 from the Chinese. Hence, Pigeon English is probably more 

 difficult for a Japanese to understand than English itself, and 

 the language is really not current in Japan. 



I found my servant, on arrival at Japan, attempting to make 

 the washerman understand a series of instructions, in what 

 he rather prided himself was good Pigeon English, though 

 it bore litde resemblance to the real article. The Japanese 

 could not understand a word, but he at once comprehended 

 a few words of plain English from me. 



The marked feature which renders Chinese and Japanese 

 towns and interiors different from all others, and strikingly 

 peculiar, is due to the vertical method of writing employed. 

 All the flags, all the sign-posts, posters, and shop-signs, and all 

 the texts decorating the walls of the interiors, all the streaks of 

 bright colour in the various views, are drawn out into length 

 vertically, to accommodate the characters, instead of horizon- 

 tally, as with us. 



We are apt to regard the Chinese method of writmg as 

 Utterly different from our own, because the characters express 



