146
NOTES AND QUERIES
A NOTE ON THE NAMES SAN ON AND PO ON
Before Hong Kong island and Kowloon were ceded, and the New Territories leased, to the British Crown, the region which is now the Colony of Hong Kong, along with the present-day Po On District on the Chinese Mainland across Deep Bay, formed a separate district of Kwangchou Prefecture. This district was called San On, a name by which it had been known since 1573, when it first acquired district status. Before this, from A.D. 716 to 1573, the region had been administered as part of Tung Kun District. Still earlier, from A.D. 331 to 716, it had been part of a larger division called Po On District 寶安縣.
This ancient name was revived in 1912 when San On District (or rather the small area that was left of it after the lease of the New Territories) was renamed Po On District. It is not unusual, even to-day, for the people of the New Territories to refer to themselves as natives of Po On District.
PETER Y. L. NG.
WHAT'S YOUR LINGO?
Most of the etymological dictionaries of English published in this century derive the former cant-word lingo, now a contemptuous term in the standard language, for speech, language, from Provençal and ultimately, of course, from Latin lingua.
Skeat's gloss, in his Etymological Dictionary, includes the following: "Prov. lengo, lingo, speech (Mistral); lingo is the precise form used at Marseilles and lengo is Gascon (Moncaut.)”
If the dictionaries are right, lingo may have come into the thieves' jargon of English sea ports from the mouths of sailors who had picked it up from Sabir, the old maritime lingua franca of the Mediterranean which is said to have contained many elements from the Provençal dialect of Marseilles.
However, while most of the modern dictionaries give us a Provençal etymology and merely ask us to bear in mind the Portuguese form lingoa, earlier works such as Dr. Johnson's,
146
NOTES AND QUERIES
A NOTE ON THE NAMES SAN ON AND PO ON
Before Hong Kong island and Kowloon were ceded, and the New Territories leased, to the British Crown, the region which is now the Colony of Hong Kong, along with the present-day Po On District on the Chinese Mainland across Deep Bay, formed a separate district of Kwangchou Prefecture MA- This district was called San On, a name by which it had been known since 1573, when it first acquired district status. Before this, from A.D. 716 to 1573, the region had been administered as part of Tung Kun District. Still earlier, from A.D. 331 to 716, it had been part of a larger division called Po On District 寶安縣-
This ancient name was revived in 1912 when San On District (or rather the small area that was left of it after the lease of the New Territories) was renamed Po On District. It is not unusual, even to-day, for the people of the New Territories to refer to themselves as natives of Po On District.
PETER Y. L. NG.
WHAT'S YOUR LINGO?
Most of the etymological dictionaries of English published in this century derive the former cant-word lingo, now a contemp- tuous term in the standard language, for speech, language, from Provençal and ultimately, of course, from Latin lingua.
Skeat's gloss, in his Etymological Dictionary, includes the following: "Prov. lengo, lingo, speech (Mistral); lingo is the precise form used at Marseilles and lengo is Gascon (Moncaut.)”
If the dictionaries are right, lingo may have come into the thieves' jargon of English sea ports from the mouths of sailors who had picked it up from Sabir, the old maritime lingua franca of the Mediterranean which is said to have contained many elements from the Provençal dialect of Marseilles.
However, while most of the modern dictionaries give us a Provençal etymology and merely ask us to bear in mind the Portuguese form lingoa, earlier works such as Dr. Johnson's,
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