Pigeon English

Pigeon English, i.e. "Business English," a sort of jargon or Ungua franca serving as the medium of intercourse between the natives and the English and other white traders on the Chinese seaboard; the words are mainly English in a more or less mutilated form, the structure Chinese; hence it is at first quite unintelligible even to those well acquainted with both languages. In recent years this jargon has penetrated inland, and is now often used as a means of communication between the natives of the provinces of Kwangtung and Fokien, whose respective dia.lects differ so greatly as to be mutually unintelligible. A similar "Pigeon Russian" has become current amongst the compradors or Chinese commercial agents of Kalgan on the Mongolo-Chinese frontier. (Prjevalsky, Mongolia, I. p. 41.)