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His writing was prodigious and varied: he wrote translations of the poems of Heinrich Heine, dictionaries of slang, jargon and cant, he wrote on the English, Welsh and Irish Gypsies and their languages, the art of conversation, the development of memory and willpower, Etruscan Roman remains, the discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist monks in the fifth century; and he wrote textbooks on perfumes and cosmetics, pyrography and wood-roasting, bent iron and strip work, art drawing, and leather work.
This digression into the life of Charles G. Leland is to show that, as an acknowledged philologist and literary wit, the Pidgin-English Sing-Song was well within his powers and sphere of interest. With these doubts about the authenticity of the language of the Sing-song, we propose to leave the work aside.
Next, I must mention Robert A. Hall Jr's article, "Chinese Pidgin English Grammar and Texts" (Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 64, 1944). In this article, Hall analyses, after the manner of Jesperson, a body of China Coast Pidgin elicited from English speakers, reflecting late-19th to early 20th Century Pidgin.
Much effort was made by Hall to undertake a phonetic and syntactic analysis of his material. But given the well-known degree of variation among Pidgin speakers, we feel that most of the effort was misguided. It is well worth noting, however, the degree of consistency between what is reported by Hall and what is found in other sources.
Do we have any sources for the way Pidgin appeared to the Chinese? Yes. First, there is the "Devils' Talk” pamphlet described by a number of authors. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a surviving copy of this, although we suspect that there must be a number of them in the U.S., if only we could imagine how the National Library of Congress would catalogue them...
But the major source was published in Canton in 1862 by an individual from Kowloon, Tong Ting Kü. The "Ying u tasp ts'ún" or "The Chinese and English Instructor" consists of six volumes, organized in the Chinese style according to topics. It contains prefaces by the author as well as by the general in command of the Kowloon Walled City, Cheung Yue Tong (famous for his calligraphy).
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His writing was prodigious and varied: he wrote translations of the poems of Heinrich Herne, dictionaries of slang, jargon and cant, he wrote on the English, Welsh and Irish Gypsies and their languages, the art of conversation, the development of memory and willpower, Etruscan Roman remains, the discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist monks in the fifth century; and he wrote textbooks on perfumes and cosmetics, pyrography and wood-roasting, bent iron and strip work, art drawing, and leather work
This digression into the life of Charles G. Leland is to show that, as an acknowledged philologist and literary wit, the Pidgin-English Sing- Song was well within his powers and sphere of interest. With these doubts about the authenticity of the language of the Sing-song, we propose to leave the work aside.
Next, I must mention Robert A. Hall Jr's article, "Chinese Pidgin English Grammar and Texts" (Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 64, 1944) In this article, Hall analyses after the manner of Jesperson a body of China Coast Pidgin elicited from English speakers, reflecting late-19th to early 20th Century Pidgin
Much effort was made by Hall to undertake a phonetic and syntactic analysis of his material. But given the well-known degree of variation among Pidgin speakers, we feel that most of the effort was misguided. It is well worth noting, however, the degree of consistency between what is reported by hall and what is found in other sources.
Do we have any sources for the way Pidgin appeared to the Chinese? Yes. First there is the "Devils' Talk” pamphlet described by a number of authors. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a surviving copy of this, although we suspect that there must be a number of them in the U. S., if only we could imagine how the National Library of Congress would catalogue them.........
But the major source was published in Canton in 1862 by an Individual from Kowloon. Tong Ting Kü. The "Ying u tasp ts'ún" or "The Chinese and English Instructor" consists of six volumes, organized in the Chinese style according to topics. It contains prefaces by the author as well as by the general in command of the Kowloon Walled City, Cheung Yue Tong (famous for his calligraphy)
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