119
adapted This pamphlet, costing a penny or two, was continually in the hands of servants, coolies and shopkeepers. The author was a Chinaman whose ingenuity should immortalize him. I have often wondered who the man was who first reduced the "outlandish tongue" to a current language. Red candles should be burnt on altars erected to his memory, and oblations of tea poured out before his image, placed among the wooden gods which in temples surround the shrine of a deified man of letters.
F
Accepting this widely-reported account of the "Devil's Talk" pamphlet to be correct, it is easy to understand how the vocabulary became established; after all, to the classically-trained Chinese mind, what appears in print becomes canon law. For fussy English-speakers to correct something which had been laid down in a Chinese textbook would have been no easy undertaking.
Be quite clear on one point. Throughout the period of the Hong merchants and up to Treaty days, Pidgin English was not merely a means of communication between Europeans and their menials. It was a vital tool in a rapidly growing China trade in the southern Chinese ports. Hunter describes his discussions in Pidgin with the famous Hong merchants—How Qua, Ming Qua, and Pan Kei Qua—among the commercial elite of Canton. Hunter also describes one of the commanders of the Tai-Ping Rebels, Ho A-Luh, as speaking very good Pidgin English.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, China Coast Pidgin had become a well-established medium of communication. From the 1850s on, the restrictions to foreign trade and traders progressively broke down, so that the conditions which had made Pidgin's development a necessity disappeared. But the opportunities for contacts between European and Chinese people increased, and the conventions of the language were well enough engrained that it survived. The young makee-larns gradually progressed in their mastery of English, while the people with transient contacts—tradesmen and servants—picked up where they had left off. In his book “Rambles in Eastern Asia”, B. L. Ball records:
“I saw a Chinaman who spoke good English, and appeared so polite that I stopped a while, and entered into conversation with him.
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119
adapted This pamphlet, costing a penny or two, was continually in the hands of servants, coolies and shopkeepers. The author was a Chinaman whose ingenuity should unmortalise him. I have often wondered who the man was who first reduced the "outlandish tongue" to a current language Red candles should be burnt on alters erected to his memory, and oblations of tea poured out before his image, placed among the wooden gods which in temples surround the shrine of a deified man of letters
F
Accepting this widely-reported account of the "Devil's Talk" pamphlet to be correct, it is easy to understand how the vocabulary became established, after all, to the classically-trained Chinese mind, what appears in print becomes canon law For fussy English-speakers to correct something which had been laid down in a Chinese textbook would have been no easy undertaking.
Be quite clear on one point. throughout the period of the Hong merchants and up to Treaty days, Pidgin English was not merely a means of communication between Europeans and their menials. It was a vital tool in a rapidly growing China trade in the southern Chinese ports, Hunter describes his discussions in Pidgin with the famous Hong merchants How Qua, Ming Qua and Pan Kei Qua-among the commercial elite of Canton. Hunter also describes one of the commanders of the Tai-Ping Rebels, Ho a-Luh, as speaking very good Pidgin English.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, China Coast Pidgin had become a well-established medium of communication From the 1850s on, the restrictions to foreign trade and traders progressively broke down, so that the conditions which had made Pigin's development a necessity disappeared. But the opportunities for contacts between European and Chinese people increased and the conventions of the language were well enough engrained that it survived. The young makee-larns gradually progressed in their mastery of English, while the people with the transient contacts - tradesmen and servants-picked where they had laid off. In his book “Rambles in Eastern Asia", B. L. Ball records-
up
"I saw a Chinaman who spoke good English, and appeared so polite that I stopped a while, and entered into conversation with him.
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