170 PIDGIN ENGLISH* 



It is not impossible that events will some day bring about 

 this result, in which case it will probably attract considerable 

 attention on the part of sinologues, as the tonal rules hither- 

 to in force will be subjected to new and curious violations. 



Still, with all this granted, none of the dialects or langua- 

 ges I have mentioned are precisely analogous to "pidgin 

 English" which, broadly speaking, chiefly consists of the 

 words of one language more or less mutilated, put together 

 according to the idiom of another. Moreover there is, I fancy, 

 no record of any dialect however Uncouth having sprung 

 up in so mushroom-like yet complete a manner. A member of 

 our Council who very kindly took the trouble to send me 

 some notes for this paper writes : " A great difficulty pre- 

 " sents itself to my mind at once. How could a system of 

 "speech have got itself established so soon as pidgin English 

 '"must have done, under the common view of its origin '? 

 "Internal evidence appears to me to point to another source 

 " than the first English factory at Canton and a necessity 

 " not explained by the difficulties found by English in 

 " speaking Chinese or by Chinese in speaking English;" and 

 he points out that there is no pidgin Portuguese at Macao 

 where the same difficulties should have led to the same re- 

 sults. I do not however quite agree with him. I should be 

 inclined to say that the immense difficulty experienced by 

 average Europeans in becoming fluent in Chinese is quite 

 sufficient to account for any alternative being gladly adopted : 

 while as regards Portuguese, though that spoken at Macao 

 is not exactly "Pidgin" it is much deteriorated in Chinese 

 mouths ; moreover it is far easier for a Chinaman to learn 

 than Eno-lish, which is I imaoine the most difficult of all Euro- 

 pea.n languages for the Chinese to master. 



Let us turn to the principal rules which govern " pidgin 

 English," and if possible, arrive at some conclusion as to its 

 proba,ble future. Altough only dating back to the early 

 days of the East India Company, a sufficient time has 

 elapsed since its origin to fix its formation within regular 

 limits. Take, for instance, to begin with, the pronoun 

 This occurs only in the forms my, he, and you, which do duty 

 both as personals and possessives "he" doing duty for " she" 

 and it. " We" and "they" are rendered by thisee wan, that 

 man, the context implying when they are used in a personal 

 rather than a demonstrative sense. The sentence " I saw 

 him" thus becomes "my have see he;" w T hile "we went 

 out" would be rendered "Alio thisee man go out." There 

 is not here any analogy between the Chinese forms (resem- 



