Chinese English Pidgin
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Chinese English Pidgin is one of a variety of pidgin languages, artificial languages used for trade.
Originally a trade jargon developed between the British and the Chinese in the 19th century, pidgin English combined words of English with a rough Chinese grammatical structure.
Pidgin is believed to have been a Chinese pronunciation of the English word business. There have been many forms of Pidgin English, often with common elements because of the wide range of contacts made by commercial shipping.
Certain expressions from Chinese English Pidgin have made their way into colloquial English. The following is a list of some of these expressions and the Chinese expressions they were literally derived from:
- long time no see
(Template:Ruby Template:Ruby Template:Ruby Template:Ruby, meaning "haven't seen [you] in a while") - look-see
(Template:Ruby Template:Ruby, meaning "to see, to perceive") - no can do
(Template:Ruby Template:Ruby Template:Ruby, meaning "to be unable to do") - no-go
(Template:Ruby Template:Ruby, meaning "not OK")sv:Pidginengelska