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First, the extracts in the Sing-Song are clearly artificial productions written as a literary joke. Given what we understand of the way Pidgin developed and how it was used, there is little chance that texts of the sort published by Leland would have circulated other than as an after-dinner entertainment among Western-educated people with a knowledge of Pidgin. We know from the writings of W.C. Hunter that this sort of entertainment did, in fact, take place.
We are not saying here that Pidgin-English Sing-Song is a hoax. Leland never claims that the texts are authentic, only that they have been judged plausible by western scholars of Chinese. The style and expressions used in the texts contain a variety of American slang and minstrelsy terms, and the overall internal evidence is, to my mind, that Leland wrote most of the texts himself.
Leland was never a long-time resident of the Far East, I must therefore digress slightly to explain how he could perform the feat of writing a small book of prose and verse in a language which he could only have known slightly. It also gives me an excuse to introduce you to a colourful and talented character,
Charles Godfrey Leland was born in Philadelphia on 15 August 1824. He was a voracious reader by the age of nine and studied at college in New Jersey from 1841 to 1845. Then he went to Germany via Italy and spent two years at the universities of Heidelberg and Munich.
Known as the "Gentle Giant", he had a gargantuan appetite for food, drink and tobacco. In 1848, he moved to the Sorbonne, and manned the barricades in the Paris Commune. Returning to Philadelphia, he studied law, then turned to journalism, authorship, politics and exploration of the Western US. He joined the Confederate cause and fought in the Civil War. He was an acknowledged master of literary journalism and in 1866, he became editor of the Philadelphia press.
From 1869 to 1879, he stayed in London and became closely associated with the humanist thinker Walter Besant. Leland took a close interest in education in the industrial arts, as well as taking up research on Gypsies and the Romany language. He was a talented linguist and was particularly interested in slang and jargon
122
First, the extracts in the Sing-Song are clearly artificial productions written as a literary joke. Given what we understand of the way Pidgin developed and how it was used, there is little chance that texts of the sort published by Leland would have circulated other than as an after- dinner entertainment among Western-educated people with a knowledge of Pidgin. We know from the writings of W.C. Hunter that this sort of entertainment did, in fact, take place.
We am not saying here that Pidgin-English Sing-Song is a hoax. Leland never claims that the texts are authentic, only that they have been judged plausible by western scholars of Chinese. The style and expressions used in the texts contain a variety of American slang and minstrelsy terms, and the overall internal evidence is, to my mind, that Leland wrote most of the texts himself.
Leland was never a long-time resident of the Far East, I must therefore digress slightly to explain how he could perform the feat of writing a small book of prose and verse in a language which he could only have known slightly. It also gives me an excuse to introduce you to a colourful and talented character,
Charles Godfrey Leland was born in Philadelphia on 15 August 1824. He was a voracious reader by the age of nine and studied at college in New Jersey from 1841 to 1845. Then he went to Germany via Italy and spent two years at the universties of Heidlberg and Munich.
Known as the "Gentle Giant", he had a gargantuan appetite for food, drink and tobacco. In 1848, he moved to the Sorbonne, and manned the barricades in the Paris Commune. Returning to Philadelphia, he studied law, then turned to journalism, authorship, politics and exploration of the Western US. He joined the Confederate cause and fought in the Civil War. He was an aknowledged master of literary journalism and in 1866, he became editor of the Philadelphia press.
From 1869 to 1879, he stayed in London and became closely associated with the humanist thinker Walter Besant. Leland took a close interest in education in the industrial arts, as well as taking up research on Gypsies and the Romany language. He was a talented linguist and was particularly interested in slang and jargon
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