The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-08-26

Cantonese, ABOUT as many Hakka. hal1
the number Annoy, a third Foo Chow,
and so on through the almost intermina-
BILE list.
THE COURT DIALECT.
Manchurian is the newest or youngest
of the lot, and is the court. or official
language of the Empire. In parts, con-
nected or disjointed as the case may be,
1t is. In one way or another, spoken In
fifteen of the eighteen provinces. To
the average man there is no recognition
of its being the same speech in any two
of them. Bell, who devoted upwards OF
a quarter Of century TO the attempt to
bring some of the main languages into
single system for the purpose of COM
parison and analysis, enabled something
OF an idea of the complexities OF the
situation by showing the number of
arbitrary syliables there are in about a
dozen of them. Cantonese, for instance,
has $50, Haklla TOO, Pekinese 43O. Foo
Chow 1856 Han-Kow BIG, Yang Chow 415,
Wen-Chow 452, Annoy SAG, Swallow GA,
Ningpo 444, and Shanghai 6GG.
Over six thousand wholly arbitrary
syllables, in these alone, to commit to
memory, and this tremendous mental
feat accomplished, the pathological scholar
is only about a tfirtieth of the way
through his task of mastering the speech
of the Empire in entirety.
NO ALPHABET
In Chinese, nouns are undeclinable,
free from gender and case; adjectives
have no degrees of comparison; verbs
no voice, mood, tense, number or person.
There is no recognizable distinction be-
tween nouns, adjectives and verbs In
his dictionaries the Chinaman uses no
alphabet, but, recoursing to two hun
dred and odd key words, he arranges them
by the termination Of their sounds: per
example. wing, ting, sing etc, all coming
under one head.
While "Pidgin,' which means business,
English is the despair of philolosists, it
is a veritable godsend to everybody else
who has occasion to open his head'-as
the saving goes-in China. And to none
is it SO more than to the Chinesa them
selves II is the general belief that "Pld-
GIN is the mainstay OF foreigners in the
Celestial Empire; that without II the great
ma jorty of them would be wholly deDarfed
from personal relations with the natives
In this the popular impression is a correct
one, but. when associated with it is the
assumption that "Pidsin'' is used only
for the inter-communty Of foreigners and
natives, then there is the biggest KIND OF
a mistake made. AS a matter OF tact
the Chinese resort to it in equal av!dity
with the foreigners, and being so many
more of them, their use of the nondeScrlpt
Without it they would frequently be
deprived of communication with their fei-
lows. Indeed, a great many Cinnamon,
originally strangers to the trz atty or other
ports where they have located in business
or are in service, never use their native
language at ali, but depend entirely upon
..Pidri.,'' English. Children in the same
way grow up to employ nothing else.
There are millions of Chinese who at the
best can only talk broken Chinese
A PECULIAR MIXTURE.
''Pidgin'' is remarkable for its simplicity.
yet at the same time most peculiar in the
odd words which have crept into it, some
of the Portuguese mixing with the con-
voluted and indescrihabiy contorted Eng
lish. often in the most unique manner
imaginable. Nevertheless, il is very rarely
in the framing of a sentence that some
word does not operate ky TO disclose
the meaning sought to be conveyed. y
little practice at catching the infection or
DETECTION, the nterrogatory or the detini-
tiva, soon enables comprehension.
The old story of the call of a couple OF gen.
tlemen upon a prince sojournng at a
Shanghai hosiery serves better than
almost any told since to Illustrate the
Importance of the tone of voice III grasp
ing .Pidgn.'' Upon making known th$dr
wish to see the Prince. mine host
responded that he would ascertain if he
were in. Stepping to the foot of the
stairway he called out
boy? One piacee Prince top-side hab
got?"
Back came the quick reply in acknowl-
edgment of having heard the inquiry:
'iSavy. Savy!''
followed in a couple of moments by the
assurance
.'One piece Prince top-side hab got.''
Turning to the gentleman, the suave
landlord CONCLUDED the prelude With
His Highness is in, gentlemen; kindly
walk up
STRANGERS SOON CATCH ON.
II is surprising, considering the queer
conjunctions characteristic OF the jargon,
how quickly the stranger catches on to
''Pidgn'' English. '.Hab got as the
affirmative and mo ha'b got the mega
tive arc first learned, and with a bit of
pantomime one can accomplish wonders
in making himself understood and under
standing with none other than these two
compounds. Soon the vagary of ever
coupling the word piece with the
numerals, such as "one piecee man. 1.-TWO
piece woman &C., &C.. becomes a matter
of course, as well as other p5culiarites;
such as for +, V for w, p's for bis, ks
Tor s $ t s for DIS, and RS for Is. Chop
chop is quickly comprehended as requisite
for securing alacrity in having anything
accomplz he'd, while my grows familiar
in the Chinaman's distinguishing himself,
as does he when some one else is meant.
Chin-chin'' carries with it the palpable
evidence OF its meaning. as do very many
other of the terms which are more express
i've than euphon:ous.
STRIKING COMPARISONS.
A capital disqualification of the vocabu-
larry, and che TO be appreciated by Ameri-
cans. is the presentation of Longfellow's
famous po5m. Excelsior in "Pidgin"
English by Chnaman, who may be par
doned foc interpolating moral instead
of free translocation of the final verse.
The poem and the transposition are intro
duced side by side, in order that the lat
ter may be the better understood when
in any part obscure or so turned hind part
to the fore as to confuse.
The shades of night were falling fast
AS through an Alpine village passed
A youth who bore mid snow and ice
a banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
That nightey tim begin chop chop
One young man wakee-no can stop;
Maskee snow! maskee ice!
He cally flag with chop so nice,
Topside Galow!
His brow was sad: his eve beneath