Talk:Chinese Pidgin English

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Yangjing Bang English
A number of Chinese dictionaries translate Pidgin as "Yangjing Bang English" (洋泾浜英语) which is the pseudo-English used in Shanghai during Qing Dynasty. However, this article states it was used in southern China (Canton). So, there is a factual inconsistency in the dictionary translation.

I translated the article to Chinese under the assumption that "Yangjing Bang English" and "Chinese Pidgin English" are the same. If someone can confirm or refute this, it will be great. --Voidvector 02:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems to be a non-worldwide view problem with this article, rather than a problem with the dictionary translations. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The Chinese version of the article is all about Yangjing Bang as used in Shanghai - which seems to correlate to some research I've done that seems to indicate that the term "Yangjing Bang" originated from Shanghai and is separate from the pidgin of Canton. I also haven't seen the word "pidgin" used until the British were in Shanghai. Does anyone want to do a translation? I don't have sources handy to do citations. Karajanis (talk) 13:35, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Apparently, Chinese Pidgin English was first spoken in Guangdong Province, then spread North to Shanghai by the 1830's. There, in Shanghai, it was called "Yangjing Bang". 「最初的洋涇浜英語多為英語和粵語的混合體，這是由於香港、澳門、廣州的洋行紛紛在上海開設分支機構，一些廣東地區的職員紛紛進入上海，在與英國商人的溝通中，逐步形成了最初的洋涇浜英語. 」 It said that early Chinese Pidgin English (in Chinese, early Yangjing Bang) was spoken as a hybrid of English and Cantonese (spoken in Guangzhou, Macau, and Hong Kong). But when Englishmen came into contact with the Shanghainese, a new variant of Chinese Pidgin english was formed, which is known as "Yangjing Bang". Thus "Yangjing Bang" is a dialect of Chinese Pidgin English. In the Chinese article, it further states that English influence in Shanghainese further correlates the migration of Ningbonese to Shanghai. Thus modern Shanghainese contains influence from Ningbo dialect as well as from Chinese Pidgin English spoken in Shanghai. We're talking about different variants of Chinese Pidgin English, not just the one spoken in Guangdong Province. Bloodmerchant (talk) 18:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a separate section for the Cantonese variety in the article. The term Yangjing Bang is certainly a Shanghainese invention and while the concept of a "pidgin" existed prior, to group all Chinese Pidgins under the Shanghai is shortsighted.

Also, where did that list of words come from? It's unsourced and not only I can immediately spot proper nouns that should be deleted and some words like ice cream bearing little resemblance to either the Mandarin or Shanghainese pronunciation of the term, they could just be transliterations of foreign words that had no direct Chinese equivalent, not exactly a part of the pidgin scene. I also know for a fact that words like 赤佬 have been used in Suzhou before significant foreign contact was made, not to mention 羅宋湯 actually means "borscht" and literally means "Russian soup" which came out of a transliteration in the White Russian Emigrant society in the 20s. I can't imagine these are isolated errors. Karajanis (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I copied and pasted some portion of the equivalent Chinese article. They can be just loanwords from English. 洋泾浜英语的著名教材当属下段手册，该手册应使用宁波方言朗读，短短的几句话中涵盖了英语的常用词汇. 该手册有很多版本，大同小异，下面是其中一种比较全的版本的全部内容： 来是康姆(come)去是谷(go)，廿四洋钿吞的福(twenty-four). 是叫也司(yes)勿叫诺(no)，如此如此沙咸沙(so and so). 真崭实货佛立谷(very good)，靴叫蒲脱(boot)鞋叫靴(shoe). 洋行买办江摆渡(comprador)，小火轮叫司汀巴(steamer). 翘梯(tea)翘梯请吃茶，雪堂(sit down)雪堂请侬坐. 烘山芋叫扑铁秃(potato)，东洋车子力克靴(rickshaw). 打屁股叫班蒲曲(bamboo chop)，混账王八蛋风炉(daffy low). 那摩温(number one)先生是阿大，跑街先生杀老夫(shroff). 麦克(mark)麦克钞票多，毕的生司(empty cents)当票多. 红头阿三开泼度(keep door)，自家兄弟勃拉茶(brother). 爷要发茶(father)娘卖茶(mother)，丈人阿伯发音落(father-in-law). 虽然洋泾浜英语已经退出历史舞台，但它在一定程度上影响或增加了许多上海话甚至普通话中的词汇，例如： 马达（motor）、漆|腊克（lacquer）、鉻|克罗米（chromium）、泡立水（polish）、马赛克（mosaic）、水门汀（cement）、水汀（steam）、戤司（gas）、吉普（jeep）、摩托车（motorcycle）、卡（Car）、派力司（palace）、开司米（cashmere）、柠檬（lemon）、色拉（salad）、土司（toast）、布丁（budding）、三明治（sandwich）、白脱（butter）、咖啡（法语café 英语coffee）、可可（cocoa）、咖喱（curry）、阿司匹林（aspirin）、来苏尔（lysol）、凡士林（vaseline）、课程（法语cours 英语course）、戳子（chop）、麦克风（microphone）、披耶那（piano）、梵哑铃（violin）、萨克斯风（saxophone）、倍司（bass）、沙蟹（show hand）、道勃儿（double）、司到婆（stop）、脱去包（touch ball）、搞儿（goal）、捎（shoot）、派司（pass）、维纳斯（venus）、沙发（sofa）、派队（party）、德律风（telephone）、扑落（插扑）（plug）、司答脱（start）、违司（waste）、司的克（stick）、行（hong）、康白度（comprador）、台头（title）、唛头 (mark)、克拉（color）、圣（saint）、安琪儿（angel）、磅（pound）、打（dozen）、听（tin）、朱古力（chocolate）、牛轧（nugget）、厄戤（again）、派（pass）、哈夫（half） 卡车（Camion）、卡片（card）、啤酒（beer）、酒吧（bar）、沙丁鱼（sardine）、雪茄烟（cigar）、雪纺绸（chiffon）、卡宾枪（cabine）、加农炮（canon）、来复枪（rifle）、米达尺（meter）、法兰盘（flan）、杏利蛋（omelet）、司必灵锁（spring）、道林纸（dauling）、拍纸薄（pad）、高尔夫球（golf）、华尔兹舞（waltz）、茄克衫（jacket）、车胎（tire）、派克大衣（parka）、贝雷帽（béret） 冰淇淋（ice cream）、苏打水（soda water）、罗宋汤（russian）、求是糖（juice）、霓虹灯（noon light）、俱乐部（club）、维他命（vitamin）、引擎（engine）、幽默（humor）、乌托邦（utopia） 发嗲（dear）、轧朋友（get）、着台型（dashing）、坍招式（juice）、开大兴（dashy）、肮三（on sale）、蹩脚（bilge）、邋遢（litter）、瘪三（beggar san）、赖三（lassie）、赤佬（cheat）、戆大（gander）、小开（kite）、大班（banker）、瘟生（one cent）、噱头（shit）、接翎子（leads）、嘎山河（gossip）、发格(f*ck) 这些外来语有的已经不被使用如：拨落头（plug，现在上海话一般用插拨，也就是插座+拨落头）、司的克(stick)、德律风(telephone)等，但有的仍被广泛使用，如：戆大(gander)、水门汀(cement)、肮三(on sale)等. 有的词语已经传至其他方言区（包括官话区），成为汉语中被普遍认同的词语，如：麦克风(microphone)、时髦(smart)等. As you can see, those words are just copied and pasted onto there. I would propose a split between what would be two separate known varieties of CPE, one Wu Chinese-influenced (Shanghai/Suzhou/Ningbo), and the other Yue Chinese-influenced(Guangzhou/Hong Kong/Macau). I believe that those 'loanwords' aren't from actual Chinese Pidgin English. Because earlier, this article only concerned Yue-influenced CPE, even though its Chinese equivalent article focused more on Wu-influenced CPE, but also mentioned Yue-influenced CPE. --Bloodmerchant (talk) 23:59, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's the problem: Hong Kong itself absorbed so much English/pseudo-English into their variety of Cantonese that I wouldn't even call it pidgin. I have a book somewhere (probably at school) with some examples, but without an actual speaker of Yangjingbang we're not going to get a good set of actual pidgin. In fact I doubt it would ever be done since after 1949 the transliteration system so dominated any part that couldn't be directly translated, and there are words that came in through a transliteration via the Japanese (like Logic）. I would kill most of that list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karajanis (talk • contribs) 07:10, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Conflicting Information!
In the little box on the right hand side of the article under 'Total Speakers' it says that Chinese Pidgin English is extinct but may have evolved in to Chinglish. However, in the Chinglish article it says there is no connection between Chinese Pidgin English and Chinglish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.77.131 (talk) 10:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Relationship with Chinglish
The first paragraph states that Chinglish is the descendant of YJB. That's just not the case, as YJB is a pidgin that both parties can understand, whereas Chinglish is Chinese-influenced non-standard English. Such a point such be stressed. Motion to correct this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.93.215.178 (talk) 23:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Vocabulary wise, YJB vocab either went out of fashion or merged into Mandarin/Shanghainese to a degree that it's now usually considered a part of the normal vernacular. Grammar wise, YJB was intentionally somewhere in the middle for ease of understanding and Chinglish is usually unintentionally bad. Whether they're actually related I think is something nobody can really say for sure since it seems that the application of English vocabulary onto Chinese or mixed grammar always will end up something similar to YJB/Chinglish, even if they had completely different intentions to begin with. So to say that one is derivative of another is.... subjective, to say the least. Karajanis (talk) 10:06, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure -- plus, "Chinglish" isn't very well defined. Most of the examples people give of Chinglish are just inaccurate or computer-aided translations that nobody bothered to proofread as opposed to, say, utterances by Chinese speakers of English. I keep wanting to see a general article for English in China on Wikipedia -- I've added a few things to the "Chinglish" page along those lines -- because Chinglish, YJB, and some other stuff would all fit under that umbrella. ---Joelh (talk) 20:04, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Influence on English
This section is pretty vague -- there are no references, and seems to be about English phrases that sound like Chinese phrases (with no proof that they are actually direct influences from Chinese), rather than a relationship between actual documented YJB phrases and today's English. I'm going to add some caveats to that section, but really I think it needs to have sources or be removed. --Joelh (talk) 20:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, the example given of "where to?" is more akin to Bristolian than Chineese. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol#Dialect. --TM. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.188.195.198 (talk) 10:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Some of these phrases do appear to be common to many languages. "Lose face" is also used in Italian and French ("perdere la faccia" and "perdre la face", respectively). Also, I found the German "kein Geld, kein Essen" (no money, no food), although in a novel about the American Revolution (an innkeeper wanted to ensure that Hessian troops would not... forget to pay for their meal). And in Dutch they say "geen geld, geen zwitsers" (no money, no Swiss; the meaning is, without money you can't have Swiss mercenaries, i.e. you won't get any outside help if you can't pay for it) Mb 3r7864 (talk) 12:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

道林紙（dauling）
"Dauling" is an old Cantonese phrase to denote 5 cent. It originates from describing the weight of 5 cent by Canton secret commercial language ,斗零 means "3-6"(3.6 milligram） Thus it is derived from Cantonese, which does somehow show evidence that CPE originated from Canton and migrate to shanghai.Qr23493 (talk) 22:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

What’s a “dauling”? Maybe the whole section should be deleted, as there’s no source given. --Babelfisch (talk) 09:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced list removed. (It had been tagged in September 2009.) --Babelfisch (talk) 02:01, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"Chinese Pidgin English" vs "Pigeon English"
According to sources, these two seem like actually different things? C933103 (talk) 09:21, 27 June 2015 (UTC) C933103 (talk) 09:21, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

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Dubious
Supercargo means an officer on a merchant ship in charge of financial matters relating to cargo. This also makes more sense as a term equivalent to taipan than the present text i.e. "a classification of shipped goods".

124.149.106.55 (talk) 08:41, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Use of Americanist Phonetic Notation
This page should be updated to utilize IPA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Omoutuazn (talk • contribs) 16:50, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Chinese Translation
Chinese Pidgin English and 洋泾浜英语 are not synonyms. 洋泾浜英语 is a variant of Chinese Pidgin English used in Shanghai. 92.40.217.152 (talk) 09:24, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

"很久不见"
The phrase "Long time no see” is translated as “很久不见” which is not a phrase used in Mandarin, as it is actually written "好久不见". I assume the writer knows Cantonese and translated 好 to 很 but this does not apply to this phrase. If anyone has any objections to this being changed please voice them but I have corrected the phrase for now Ametalbaby (talk) 19:04, 4 September 2023 (UTC)