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CHINA COAST PIDGIN ENGLISH
ANNE AND STEPHEN SELBY
Hundreds of millions of years ago, the dinosaurs ruled the earth. They were an efficient, diversified group admirably suited to their environment. Over a long period, they flourished and in their turn, they subtly affected the environment they lived in. During the period the dinosaurs roamed the earth, flowering plants as we know them today evolved.
Again over a long period, they died out. Their fossils give us clues about their appearance, their environment and their lifestyle. Some of their relatives have evolved into species which survive today.
Looking at China Coast Pidgin English is like studying dinosaurs. Only the barest traces of Pidgin survive. Because the language is one of history's losers, it has, like the dinosaurs, been characterized as clumsy, outmoded and comical.
We should like to devote this article to looking at the bones, without preconceptions or prejudice and helping to reconstruct the animal for you, together with its environment, its origins and its demise.
"Pigeon English", says Hobson Jobson, the Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases published in 1886 by Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, is "the vile jargon which forms the means of communication at the Chinese ports between Englishmen who do not speak Chinese, and those Chinese with whom they are in the habit of communicating
Miss Isabella Bird, whose book, "The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither" published in 1883 is cited in Hobson Jobson, wrote
"The Pidgin English is revolting, and the most dignified persons demean themselves by speaking it... How the whole English-speaking community, without the distinction of rank, has come to communicate with the Chinese in this baby-talk is extraordinary.
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Many sources on Pidgin refer to it as "baby talk.” Objective accounts