Found while looking at pidgin languages in wikipedia:

Certain expressions survive from Chinglish, a pidgin formerly spoken in Southeast Asia. They have made their way into colloquial English[citation needed]. Many expressions are literal translations from Cantonese grammar. These include, in English (Chinese character and Cantonese pinyin) format:

* long time no see (好耐冇見 hao2 noi6 mou5 gin3): we have not seen each other for some time (used as a greeting)
* look-see (睇見 tai2 gin3): look and see
* no can do (唔得做 m4 dak1 zou6): cannot do
* no-go (唔去 m4 heoi3): do not go.

That’s totally cool! I didn’t know that. I think of no-go and no-can-do, in my head, as something you’d hear from some seasoned military vet … which I guess makes sense, considering who probably brought these pidgin phrases back to the U.S.

Also, did you know that International Sign Language is considered a pidgin language?

Also, a creole language is one that exists as a mixture of two or more languages, but rather than being used as a go-between for bilingual people is actually taught as a native tongue.

~ by Skennedy on April 13, 2007.

Posted in Uncategorized

8 Responses to “Found while looking at pidgin languages in wikipedia:”

  1. *chuckles* I didn’t know the bits about the phrases, but the rest I did. As a linguist, of course. And stuff like this is part of why I’m a linguist!

    cjtremlett said this on April 13, 2007 at 6:43 pm

  2. Go and No-Go

    These terms date back farther in English than the Vietnam war. I know that they were extensively used in aeronautical and aerospace engineering circles in the 1950s and possibly earlier.

    niteshad said this on April 13, 2007 at 7:20 pm

    • Actually, I was thinking of the british and the opium wars.

      atdt1991 said this on April 13, 2007 at 7:42 pm

      • OK, that I could see. However, were there any Chinese sympathetic to the British during the Opium Wars. We’ve since cheapened the term “imperialism” but that was Imperialism in the original sense of the word.

        niteshad said this on April 13, 2007 at 9:20 pm

        • During that time (I believe), the british had a special section of their main ports in china devoted to them, and they had their own houses and servants.

          atdt1991 said this on April 13, 2007 at 9:24 pm

    • Re: Go and No-Go

      … but I specifically said U.S., so I can see your confusion. *grin* I originally wrote “mainland”, but that didn’t make sense at all, and just went with the next mental image. Oops!

      atdt1991 said this on April 13, 2007 at 7:43 pm

  3. I have always liked the word patois

    vortech said this on April 13, 2007 at 8:06 pm

  4. That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. I say all these all the time. Of course, my language is heavily colored by my grandmother, who also said such things all the time.

    crysodenkirk said this on April 14, 2007 at 1:49 am

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