Chinese Pidgin English (CPE)

A friend of mine, Si Jia, Associate Professor in the Department of History, Fudan University, recently published an article on Chinese Pidgin English (CPE) from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries in the latest issue of Chinese Culture Quarterly (《九州學林》), published by the Chinese Civilisation Centre, City University of Hong Kong, in which I also contributed a review article on a recent work about British sinology (熊文華's 《英國漢學史》).

Her paper triggered me to look into the growing body of research on pidgin language and a scholarly journal in the genre: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Language, from which I read some interesting discussion on varying scope of pidgin and creole language relating to the Chinese language. They are:

Bao Zhiming and Khin Khin Aye, "Bazaar Malay topics," Journal of Pidgin and Creole Language, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2010, pp. 155-71. It's a shame that I know nothing about Malay though my aunt and her family live, study and work in Malaysia.

Umberto Ansaldo, Stephen Matthews, and Geoff Smith, "China Coast Pidgin: Texts and contexts," Journal of Pidgin and Creole Language, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2010, pp. 63-94.

Jeff Siegel, "Chinese Pidgin English in southeastern Australia: The notebook of Jong Ah Siug,"Journal of Pidgin and Creole Language, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2009, pp. 306-37. A 80-page notebook written in a form of English by a Chinese gold miner, Jong Ah Siug (Zhongshan, 1837 - Melbourne, 1900), who arrived in Victoria around 1855. Ruth Moore and John Tully's A Difficult Case by Jong Ah Siug: An Autobiography of a Chinese Miner on the Central Victorian Goldfields (translated and annotated by the authors, with a historical introduction) (Daylesford, VIC: Jim Crow Press, 2000).

Ronald I. Kim, "California Chinese Pidgin English and its historical connections," Journal of Pidgin and Creole Language, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2008, pp. 329-44. Sources: a collection of telegrams sent among Chinese immigrants to and from Downieville, Sierra County in 1874; legal testimony from the trial of The People of the State Califronia vs Ah Jake, Defendant on 23 October 1874;The Chinese Must Go: A Farce in Four Acts, a drama by Henry Grimm of San Francisco, published in 1879.

Roman Shapiro, "Chinese Pidgin Russian," Journal of Pidgin and Creole Language, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2010, pp. 5-62. existed at the Chinese-Russian border since at least the 18th century. rare primary and secondary sources. It is shame that I don't read the Russian language.