Old Shanghai Pidgin English "Pidgin English"

"Pidgin" in Shanghai dialect generally refers to a person or language who has learned neither fish nor fowl. Shanghainese used to call China English Pidgin English. Speaking of pidgin, we should start with pidgin.

Background:

Yang Jing is a small river in Shanghai in the old society, and there is another thing in the Huangpu River. Yang Jing in Pudong was built in the 1920s. We usually call Pidgin Puxi Pidgin. Yang Jing meets the Huangpu River near the ferry of Yan 'an East Road and flows westward into Zhou Jing (now South Tibet Road). Before 1840, this area was densely covered with thorns, which was the main cemetery in the northern suburb of Shanghai's old county. The British Concession was established in 1845, with Yang Jing as its southern boundary. The French Concession was founded in 1849, and its northern boundary is also here. The British Concession built "Songjiang Road" along the river on the north bank, and the French Concession also built "Confucius Road" on the south bank. Therefore, as the boundary river of the British-French concession in Shanghai, it soon became lively. The earliest Peking Opera Theatre "Man Ting Square" (now Jingjiang Street, Guangdong Road) and "Dangui Tea Garden" appeared here. Lishui Garden, the first large modern teahouse in Shanghai (now a natural museum), is also here.

Meaning:

The real Pidgin is a watershed in the British-French Concession, and it is also the only place for Shanghai County to go to the British Concession.

In addition to this important significance, the agreement between Shanghai Road and the Concession was named after the articles of association of Pidgin. So Pidgin also refers to foreign markets and concessions. After the establishment of the Shanghai Concession, foreign firms from Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and Nanyang set up branches in Shanghai, and then some Cantonese comprador and clerks came to the Concession. They use fluent English as a trade middleman, so a kind of English with inaccurate grammar and China accent appeared near Pidgin, which is called "Yang Jinbang English".

At the same time, businessmen of other nationalities in Shanghai are learning English in order to have direct contact with foreign businessmen. Some publishers also took the opportunity to print a quick English manual with Chinese pronunciation and phonetic notation, which is directly called Pidgin English Manual. So Pidgin refers to English transliterated in Chinese. Pidgin English was originally based on the pronunciation of Guangdong. Later, with the emergence of a large number of businessmen in Ningbo, the pronunciation of Ningbo dialect was gradually used for phonetic notation.

For example, the following Zhi Zhu words must be pronounced in Shanghainese or Ningbo dialect to distinguish their meanings:

Good dharma body and sofa body, (how fashionable, how fashionable)

So is Luo Zhen. (correct)

Blank you and Blank May, (belong to you and belong to me)

Yes, I am alone.

Clothes are accompanied by clear language, (for a moment)

Comb, have a rest with me. (I'll be with you in a minute)

How many foreign companies have come to Kangbadu (comprador)

It's hard to guess what to say.

Meet Goose Cat in the morning, (Good morning)

Say goodbye to each other by the way. (Hello)

If you don't mess around, (squeeze)

What's the matter, miss? Call sir. (sir)

What is the slider supported by the king? (What do you want)

Don't want me to be the king of Enoch. (I don't want it)

Anger at the poor outside, (coolie, from Hindi)

One word is sad.

There is also a pidgin English manual. Everyone will think it is "so-and-so" after reading it.

Let's shout, let's shout away,

Yes, don't talk about it (no).

One dollar, one dollar,

24 hours,

Have a cup of tea,

Tang Xue Tang Xue asked Nong to sit down.

Red head, three shots, gatekeeper,

His brother teh tarik,

I asked the tea maker to sell tea (father/mother).

Father-in-law is pronounced by father-in-law

Others such as A Mu Forest (imbecile), mixed gun potential (mixed chance), secret code (closed code, small tricky code) and so on. ), Mould, Dear, LASSIE, DASHY, Ga Sanhu, Beggar, Beggar.

Characteristics of Pidgin English:

1) Pidgin English is only spoken, and there is no formal written form. This is because Pidgin English is formed by Chinese and English speakers everywhere. There is no uniform form and standard, and there are many variants.

2) The phonetic features of Pidgin English are influenced by Chinese phonetic system. Because many Chinese dialects only have [l] but no [r], Yang Jinghong often uses [l] instead of [r] in English pronunciation, for example, the reading room [ru: m] is [Lu: m]; Read all rights as [? Chinese syllables generally don't end in consonants. Pidgin English often adds a vowel to words ending in consonants, for example, make [meik] is [meiki:], which turns make into makee and much ee into muchee.

3) Lexical elements are basically from English, but they are shortened. The main source of vocabulary is still English, and only a few words come from Chinese or India. The most common ones in China are chin-chin (for greeting and invitation) and chow chow (for eating or food). In addition, there are words brought by the British from India and other places, such as chit (letter, bill) and godown (warehouse). The usage of common words is much larger than that of English words, which is because Pidgin English adopts the strategy of abbreviation and avoidance of words. For example, catcheel(=catch) means "get".

4) Individual English words are often misused. According to research, there are only about 700 words in Pidgin English in China, so a word should have several or even a dozen English words. For example, the English word "belong" is often used in Pidgin English. Replace a few Chinese characters, a dozen Chinese characters or even dozens of Chinese characters with one word. For example, "you belong to ploper" (how are you? ) appropriate; It is a prop; "How much do they belong to?" how much is it? ) More is more. The reason why the word "belong" is frequently used is that in Pidgin English, the linking verb "to be" and its various forms do not exist, and all of them are replaced by "belong". For example, I am, you are, he is, and they are all called "I belong", "you belong" and "he belongs". If you want to say "I'm sorry", don't say "I'm sorry", but say "I belong, I'm sorry". If you want to say, "He is in China now." Say "He is in China now" instead of "He belongs to China now". There seems to be no word "giving" in Pidgin English, and it is often used to express the meaning of "giving". For example, when a foreign hostess receives her guests and asks China servants to provide tea, she must say, "Pay for the tea." Even foreigners say "kiss" when they say goodbye to China dancers. Influenced by Chinese quantifiers, the word piece is widely used. Pidgin English speaks two books instead of two books; . Use edge and time to represent space and time, use top to represent "above" and use another time to represent "again".

5) The grammatical feature of Pidgin English is that there is no grammar, that is, there is no independent grammatical system, so we can't copy and expand it according to certain rules, sentence patterns and morphology. In addition, although Pidgin English is called "English", it is more influenced by Chinese than English. It seems that it would rather follow the expression habits and word order of Chinese than the basic grammar of English, while ignoring the basic sentence-making structures of English such as number, case, person, tense, aspect and state. It is this feature that makes it different from Chinglish, which is often mentioned now. Chinglish does not conform to English expression habits, but after all, it conforms to the general rules of English grammar, while Pidgin English neither conforms to English idioms nor to English general grammar. For example, "It's none of my business." The correct statement should be "it's none of my business." Or "It's none of my business." Chinglish may say, "It's none of my business." In Pidgin English, it will say "Pidgin that doesn't belong to me." This feature is especially obvious in the use of personal pronouns. For example, in Pidgin English, my is synonymous with personal pronouns such as I, we, mine and ours. So "I can't" is called "I can't" and "we don't want anything" is called "I don't want it".

Contribution: Pidgin English once existed in China for nearly two centuries, and played an important role in modern foreign trade, diplomacy and cultural exchanges, with far-reaching influence. As a common language, it became an essential tool for ordinary people to communicate with foreigners at that time.