释义 |
pidgin, pigeon|ˈpɪdʒɪn, -ən| Also pidjin, pidjun, pidgeon. a. A Chinese corruption of Eng. business, used widely for any action, occupation, or affair. Hence pidgin-English, the jargon, consisting chiefly of English words, often corrupted in pronunciation, and arranged according to Chinese idiom, orig. used for intercommunication between the Chinese and Europeans at seaports, etc. in China, the Straits Settlements, etc.; also transf. (quot. 1891).
1826B. Hall Acct. Voy. Corea (rev. ed.) vi. 287, I come to see about your pigeon. Ibid. 288, I afterwards learned that..‘pigeon’, in the strange jargon spoken at Canton by way of English, means business. 1845J. R. Peters Misc. Remarks upon Chinese vii. 73 Pidgeon, is the common Chinese pronunciation of business. 1850Berncastle Voy. China II. 65 The Chinese not being able to pronounce the word ‘business’, called it ‘bigeon’, which has degenerated into ‘pigeon’, so that this word is in constant use. 1859All Year Round I. 20 ‘Piece of China’, A-tye will row you out, because she can speak pigeon English. 1872A. D. Carlisle Round World x. 106 The dialect..current between Englishmen and Chinamen..goes by the name of Pigeon-English. 1873Macm. Mag. Nov. 45 [Article]. 1876Leland Pidgin English Sing Song 3 Pidgin is with great ingenuity made expressive of every variety of calling, occupation, or affair. 1876Besant & Rice Gold. Butterfly xlv. He had a ghost story of his own—an original one in pigeon English. 1901A. Lang Magic & Relig. 37 His rude lingua franca, or pidgin English. (See also N. & Q. 10th s. V. 90/2.) b. A language as spoken in a simplified or altered form by non-natives, spec. as a means of communication between people not sharing a common language. Freq. attrib. or in Comb. Also fig.
1891Argus (Melbourne) 7 Nov. 13/4 That ridiculous pigeon-English which the whites have used..throughout Queensland..as their medium of communication with the blacks. 1921H. E. Palmer Princ. Language-Study 107 Pidgin or pidgin-speech may be defined as that variety of a language which is used exclusively by foreigners. 1943R. A. Hall Melanesian Pidgin Eng. 8 The phonetics of Melanesian Pidgin are basically those of a slightly sub-standard English. Ibid. 9 In the absence of native speakers, Pidgin does not present the same constant features of pronunciation and grammatical usage as do major languages. 1955P. Strevens Papers in Lang. (1965) ix. 120 Esperanto is, in fact, a kind of glorified Pidgin Indo-European. 1962Listener 27 Sept. 467/2 Pidgin exists in India and Africa as well—but the context is very different from that of Pidgin in New Guinea. 1964Ibid. 5 Mar. 388/2 At Layer Marney the old is all. The Renaissance motifs are handled awkwardly. This is trying to speak Italian without command of grammar, syntax, or vocabulary... It is the pidgin-Italian spoken by the sturdy Englishman of the Perpendicular. 1968W. J. Samarin in J. A. Fishman Readings Sociol. of Lang. 667 In the fifteenth century there developed a pidgin Portuguese which may have originated in the first contacts with the Africans, but ultimately spread to the ports of the Far East. Ibid. 671 The ease with which Korean Bamboo English developed leads one to imagine the inevitability of pidgins in the world. 1968Economist 14 Dec. 4/1 The Soviet graduates, to whom you refer, are as little satisfied with pidgin marxism as young opinion in the British 1930s was with Mr. Neville Chamberlain. 1974Florida FL Reporter XIII. 17/1 While agreeing with Nida and Fehdereau that pidgin-using and koine-forming situations are strongly analogous, I cannot agree that the ‘Sabir Pidgins’..at least are special formations. 1975Language LI. 684 The use of morphemes borrowed by a pidgin or creole language..from a European language often diverges widely from the use of the source morpheme in the source language. 1978Verbatim Feb. 10/1 Both authors hold to..the Creolist theory, which traces the present-day Black English vernacular to a Plantation Creole, to a plantation-maritime pidgin, to an African origin. c. Phr. (to be) someone's pigeon: to be (that person's) concern, affair, etc.
1904Kipling Traffics & Discov. 293 ‘What about their musketry average?’ I went on. ‘Not my pidgin,’ said Bayley. 1919B. Ruck Disturbing Charm ii. x. 248 It was not Jack's pidgin to do anything until then. 1924G. L. Mallory Let. 11 May in E. F. Norton Fight for Everest: 1924 (1925) ii. 233 Geoffrey Bruce whose ‘pigeon’ it is to deal with the porters. 1929C. Mackenzie Gallipoli Memories xiii. 237 ‘Nothing known of this man here.’ ‘Pass to N.T.O. K beach.’ ‘From M.L.O. Lancashire Landing to A.P.M. K beach. This is your pigeon, I think.’ 1929J. Masefield Hawbucks 164 This is my pidgin; none of yours at all. 1935Punch 30 Jan. 136/1 ‘There's trouble in Paraguay,’ said the man from Geneva. ‘Then leave it there,’ said I. ‘It's not my pigeon.’ 1957‘J. Wyndham’ Midwich Cuckoos iii. 26 ‘Not our kind of job,’ he said, with the air of one recalling a useful Union decision. ‘More like the fire chaps' pigeon, I'd say.’ 1959Times 6 Mar. 11/7 If it is the fur (not our pigeon) that makes Mr. Page furious, maybe the answer is mothballs. 1961L. P. Hartley Two for River 45 Well, you do something, Thomas Henry, it's your pigeon. 1977B. Pym Quartet in Autumn xviii. 160 Janice wondered whether anyone else had been to see Marcia... She was Janice's special pigeon, if you could put it like that.
Add: Hence ˈpidginist n., a student of pidgin languages.
1972J. L. Dillard Black English iii. 112 John Reinecke, in some respects the most remarkable Pidginist of them all. 1987English World-Wide VIII. 100 The existence of KanE was not widely known among pidginists and creolists before Tom Dutton's pioneering work. |