WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 118, 16 February 1928, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM [During the absence on holiday of “T.D.H.," "Notes at Randnni” will be contributed by “Wi.”l Judging by the latest newspapers from the L'uited States, considerably more interest seems to be taken in the great motor-car price war than was the case with the Great European War.. In A.D. 2028: Goo! what’s that ancient print, Daddy— That funny-looking man ? The species is extinct, laddy, That’s a pedestrian. The following excellent adaptation, in “pidgin” English, of a well-known nursery rhyme, gives us a very good idea c.i a language medium which Sir Richard Burton, the noted traveller, once declared was destined to become the lingua franca of the world:— Singee songee sick a pence, i’oekee muchee lye (rye) ; Dozen two time blackee bird Cookee in ee pie. When him cuttee top-side Birdee muchee sing; Him tinkee nicee dish Settee lor ee King! Kingee in ee talke loom /room) Countee muchee money, Queenee in ee kitchee Chow-chow breadee honey.Servant gilo workee Washee hangee clothes, Chop chop conice blackee bird Nippee off her nose!

"Pidgin” is really an Eastern adaptation of the word “business,” eliminating the sibilants which the Oriental tongue so much dislikes. Pidgin English came into being in China in the seventeenth century when the pioneer foreigners established themselves in Canton. ' The idea of mastering an Oriental tongue appealed to very few of them. So, in time, the natives obligingly accepted the mental responsibilities necessary to relieve the situation, and set about trying to converse in the foreigners’ language, which was, for the most part, English. The Cantonese did not make this concession without reservations. Apparently they retained the right to discard from English certain disagreeable elements having to do with structure and sound, and to substitute for them some highly delightful and fantastic features reflecting their own ingenuity. The result was pidgin.

Eventually Chinese-pidgin glossaries were published for the benefit of boys ambitious to become compradores or servants in the homes of foreigners. One of the earliest of these is entitled “A Vocabulary of Words in Use Among the Red-Haired Barbarians.” The date of publication may be judged from the cover, which carries a full-length portrait of one of the “barbarians” dressed m the breeches and stockings of the Georgian period.

During the ’6os and ‘7os the new jargon spread far and wide, everybody along the string of seaports and river ports of China and the Straits speaking enough of it to be easily understood. Portuguese, English, Dutch, French, Germans, and Americans were jabbering it at each other—some of them thinking they were speaking purest English! It was in this guise that pidgin made its way to the coast of New Guinea and on to Polynesia. Even Chinese from different provinces, who could not understand one another’s dialects, for the first time found a common tongue in pidgin English-speak-ing mothers complained that they had to translate.

The greatest conquest the pidginists have made since these prophecies is in the Hawaiian Islands. Here it may be called the common tongue of some 200,000 people. It is the means of intercourse between the Japanese, .Portuguese, Filipinos, Chinese, Russians, Spaniards, Koreans, Hawaiians, and English-speaking peoples. Peppered and spiced with words (or caricatures of them) from the languages of each of these groups, it takes on greater colour and becomes what someone has termed “the true Mongrelian tongue.”

“Chin-chin” is good Chinese for “please,” but has been appropriated by pidgin as a felicitous greeting. In the Cantonese we find the word "chow,” signifying a dinner, or feast. This may lie the origin of the familiar and indispensable “chow” of pidgin. It is applied to food generally, used as a verb meaning to eat, and “chowwatta” is drinking water. .It is a bit inelegant, but the real objection to it is that the chow dog, that blueblooded aristocrat, is so named because the foreigner suspected him. of forming a part of the coolie s diet! “Chop-chop,” meaning to make haste, is from the Cantonese. “You. chopchop go” translates “You go quickly.’ “Chop-sticks” are to hasten eating.

Irish procedure is nothing if not unconventional, as witness the administration of the oath to a Gaelic-speak-ing rogue, told in a recently-published book of Irish reminiscences, from the pen of a retired advocate. “Interpreter: ‘Take the book m your right hand and listen to your oath—repeat after me: If I do not tell the truth in this case ’ Defendant: ‘lf I do not tell the truth in this case.’ Interpreter: ‘May all my sheep be clifted.’ _ Defendant: ‘My God, counsellor, i never heard an oath like that.’ Interpreter: ‘I shall tell His Honour that you tefuse to be sworn if you do not repeat ’ Defendant: ‘Mav all my sheep—but. Counsellor, I have three hundred sheep.’ . ... Interpreter: ‘Are you going to take the oath?’ Defendant: ‘May all my sheep--mav all—may all my sheep be clifted—God help the poor’sheep.’ Interpreter (sternly) :. ‘May all my cattle die of the murrain.’ Defendant: ‘Oh, Counsellor, I have only three little beasts.’ Interpreter: ‘Very well, you will be decreed.’ . , Defendant: ‘But this is dreadful altogether, Mav all—mav all—may all my cattle die of the murrain—l’m a ruined man.’ Interpreter: ‘And may all my potatoes be blighted, and rot in the ground.’ Defendant: ‘What? ! I Interpreter: ‘Go on, sir, and repeat vour oath.’ Defendant (laving down the Bible) . ‘Oh, Counsellor, I’ll admit the debt, I’m’only asking for time.’ ” Chicago Housewife: John, have they started riveting on tliat new building next door already? Her busband: No, no, dear, calm down! that’s only a machine gun you hear. Aunt Prudence: “Keep away from the loudspeaker, Denny. The announcer sounds as if he had a cold. WHY? Whv do our joys depart For cares to seize the heatt? I know not. Nature says, Obey; and Man obeys. I see, and know not why, Thorns live and roses die. s-Waltgj Savage Landpr.