-PIDGIN-' ENGLISH. 



By N. B. Dexxys Ph. D. 

 Bead at a Meeting of the Society held on the 9th Bee. 1878, 



Most visitors to the Far East have heard of Pidgin English, 

 though its use is principally confined to Hongkong and 

 the "•Treaty" or open ports of China. How and when it 

 took its origin is an unsolved mystery. The oldest living 

 foreign resident in China recollects it as the standard means 

 of communication, not merely between foreign masters and 

 their domestic servants, but between the once fabulously rich 

 members of the Congsee or •'Thirteen Hongs." who, up to 

 1859, were alone permitted to transact business at Canton 

 with •* outside barbarians." But we fail to find any authentic 

 record as to when it first assumed the dignity of a language or 

 when proficiency in its phraseology was an object of ambition 

 to dapper young Chinese clerks to enable them to fill the 

 posts of interpreters and squeeze-collectors. It appears to 

 have been in common use when Dr. Morrison was achieving 

 the herculean task of compiling the first Anglo-Chinese dic- 

 tionary, some sixty or more years ago, and was probably cur- 

 rent shortly after -the East India Company's factory was first 

 established at the City of Earns. I propose to occupy a 

 few minutes of your time in briefly describing this latest 

 addition to the philological family, and. it may be. to vindicate 

 its claims to passing attention as illustrating under our own 

 eyes a process which many tongues now ranking as import- 

 ant must have under gone in their earlier stages. There 

 is a strong flavour of " Pidgin " in a good deal of the Law 

 Latin and French of the 11th and 12th centuries. Pidgin 

 English therefore', uncouth as it is. aids us in recalling bow 

 languistic changes were brought about in our own and kindred 

 languages. 



Speculation, however, as I have said, is woefully adrift in 

 tracing its origin, and even its name has puzzled the brains 

 of clever etymologists. The most popular and probably the 

 most correct derivation is from the word " business " which 



