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I've been looking through some of the words in《红毛通用番话诠释

Here's a little sample

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This pidgin words are based on Cantonese.

I'm curious if any of these pidgin words actually made it as loanwords into any Chinese topolect or language.

The closest one I can think of is 多時 which was a pidgin word for toast, but it is mostly written as 多士 now.

A lot of pidgin is written in Cantonese, which I know very little about, it is hard to determine if anything got adopted into the local language or not.

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7 Answers 7

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The link in OP is a very interesting read. Since there are several very long vocabulary lists, I just glanced through them really quickly, and I noticed in 《红毛番话》(拟名)抄本 at least one term that is still in use.

The term is 沙律, which means "salad". Though salad is usually called "沙拉" in Mandarin today, it is still called 沙律 in Cantonese as far as I know.

As this 抄本 has many food-related terms, it is quite possible that more of them survived today, but sadly I don't know Cantonese well enough to tell.

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at least two survived in nowadays:

typhoon

typhoon is derived from cantonese “大風” daai6 fung1, in which the term “颱風” is used now

joseph conrad wrote a book “typhoon, and other stories”, the background is in south east asia :)

ketchup

this one is derived from hokkien “鮭汁”, the term “喼汁” is used now

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  • Aren't these the opposite of what OP is asking? OP asks about English -> Chinese. These are Chinese -> English.
    – Betty
    Jan 5, 2021 at 3:40
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None of them was adopted into Cantonese.

When I was a kid, I saw them in 通勝. (I remember 'hospital -->可士必吐') I am not sure if the publishers of 通勝 still keep them nowadays. They were useless back then and are useless now.

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You can find some information about loan words in this pdf.

Here are some excerpts:

单音节语素: 吧(bar)、秀(show)、酷(cool)、磅(pound)、卡1(car)、卡2(card)、搡 (满)、菠(尼泊尔)、苹(梵)……

复音节语素: 沙发(sofa)、吉普(jeep)、咖啡(coffee)、的士(taxi)、巴士(bus)、杜 马(Дума)、巧克力(chocolete)、迪斯科(disco)、歇斯底里 (hysteria)、奥 林匹克(Olympic)、阿司匹林(aspirin)、卡布奇诺(Cappuccino,奶沫咖 啡)、布尔什维克(болъшевик)...

Some interesting facts:

爱斯不难读(Esperanto的音译,世界语)

马路

“马车”是马拉的车,但“马路”并不是走马的路。“马路”之“马”其 实是英语人名“约翰·马卡丹”中的一个音节。这种新型道路最初为 18世纪英格兰人约翰·马卡丹发明,故名“马卡丹路”,简称“马路”。

无锡 产锡?

周振鹤、游汝杰(2006,140页)指出,苏南、浙北、赣北、皖西一带的 地名“句容、无锡、余干、余姚、乌程、芜湖”,** 其中的冠首字“句、芜、无、余、乌”等可以确知是古越语的发语词 **, 但是整个地名的意义已不可考。 其中有的地名后世不知其所由来,往往望文生义,妄加解释,如以为“无 锡”其地本来产锡,至于汉代已采尽,故名。这就上了汉字的当,曲解了 地名的命名理据。

词缀

词缀的构词成分,如 “反 (anti-)、后 (post-)、超 (super-)、前 (pre-、ex-)、可 (英语成分为 后缀:-able、-ible)、主义(-ism)、学(-ics)”等,

新读音

法国“戛纳电影节”,“戛”字实际上并不按照词典的注音念 jia2,而是ga1(包括中央电视台的播音员都是ga1)。如果按照对音, 应该写作“嘎”。倘若写作“戛”而读作ga1,就增加了“戛”的语音形式, 也就是说“戛”成了多音字。 “伽马刀、伽马射线”,“伽”字读作ga2,是因音译希腊字母γ的读音 gamma而产生的新读音。①

Portugal 葡萄牙?

人们常常纳闷,为什么Portugal会译成“葡萄牙”。其实联系闽南 话的读音(如厦门话“牙”的文读音为[ga]),“葡萄牙”作为Portugal的 音译,其中的“牙”的来历就清楚了。周振鹤、司佳(1998)指出:“葡萄牙 在中国长期被称作大西洋国,利玛窦译作波尔杜瓦尔,与其拉丁读音相 当符合。《东西洋考每月统记传》中始译作葡萄牙,其官话读音与葡语 或英语读音都不相对应,但用闽南话读与原音却无二致,疑是传教士受 闽南话影响所致。《东西洋考》中还有葡萄库尔一词,保留由波尔杜瓦 尔蜕变的痕迹。此国名在汉语中始终未曾以英语的读法出现。”

Some other words still use in my hometown

嘎斯罐(Gas tank) 马葫芦(manhole, tranlated from Japanese, manhoru)

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Late to the party here. I have a copy of 天寶樓1999年通勝 (Chinese almanac), which has the Cantonese–English phrasebook section 《英華通語》 described by Tang Ho. There are quite a few English terms that have made it into Cantonese and still been recorded in such phrasebooks.

Of note are the following, where the phrasebook's Cantonese explanation of the English term is effectively the same as (or a phonetic variant of) the suggested pronunciation:

Loanword English Phrasebook pronunciation Phrasebook explanation
cents 仙地 分錢仙角
先令 shilling 司令 先令
便士 pence 便士 便士
pound
加侖 gallon 加侖 加侖
dozen 打臣 一打
bar 酒巴
檸檬 lemon 來蒙 檸檬
beer 啤酒
咖啡 coffee 加啡 咖啡
咖喱 curry 加里 㗎喱
士的 stick 士的 士的

Here are some more loans into Cantonese off the top of my head, which are not in the phrasebook and haven't yet been mentioned in the other answers:

Loanword English Comment
ball
拜拜 bye-bye
煲呔 bowtie
忌廉 cream
極力子 clutch in a manual car
付碌 fluke commonly heard in snooker commentary
結他 guitar
jack both the playing card and the mechanical device
jam seen in 茶餐廳 menus
𨋢 lift elevator
咪 (mai1) mike microphone
啤 (pe1) pair as in 啤牌 "playing cards", also literally a "pair"
pie as in 蘋果批 "apple pie"
pump
show
士巴拿 spanner
tart as in 蛋撻 "egg tart"
呔 (taai1), 軚 (taai5) tyre taai1 for "tyre", taai5 for "steering wheel"

More colloquial are "mon" (from "monitor"), "port" (from the verb "report"), and "sor" (from "sorry").


Just for fun, here's the start of the numbers section of the almanac phrasebook, and the entries near Tang Ho's 可士必度 "hospital". Most of the entries pictured here are not in use as loanwords. Click for enlarged versions:

Almanac phrasebook: numbers section

Almanac phrasebook: hospital etc.

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A wild accepted pidgin is 洋泾浜英语 where English is merged in Chinese in the trading process around ShangHai. A lot of the words are still in used. Such as 水门汀 cement is used a lot in ShangHai area, and 麦克风 microphone is even used nationwide.

It is not easy to tell if a word is pidgin or just a single homophonic translated word. I think not all homophonic translations are pidgin. Pidgin need to emerge in a situation that two parties of people are forced to combine their language. Such as 因特网 is a homophonic translation of internet but not pidgin.

Ref: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/洋泾浜英语

As not all the words in the Wiki page are commonly used today, I will just list the ones I use in daily life here. Note that I am not from ShangHai or live in ShangHai.

音译詞

阿司匹林(aspirin) 贝斯(bass) 咖啡(法語:café、英語:coffee) 卡(Card) 水门汀(cement) 巧克力(chocolate) 戳子(chop) 可可(cocoa) 咖喱(curry) 打(dozen) 吉普(jeep) 柠檬(lemon) 麦克风(microphone) 马赛克(mosaic) 马达(motor) 牛轧(nougat) 派对(party) 磅(pound) 布丁(pudding) 沙拉(salad) 三明治(sandwich) 萨克斯(saxophone) 沙发(sofa) 听(tin) 抬頭/台头(title) 吐司(toast) 凡士林(vaseline) 维纳斯(venus)

音译加意译

酒吧(bar) 啤酒(beer) 贝雷帽(béret) 卡宾枪(cabine) 卡车(Camion) 加农炮(canon) 卡片(card) 雪纺绸(chiffon) 雪茄烟(cigar) 俱乐部(club) 道林纸(dauling) 引擎(engine) 法兰盘(flan) 高尔夫球(golf) 幽默(humor) 冰激凌(ice cream) 夹克衫(jacket) 霓虹灯(neon light) 派克大衣(parka) 来复枪(rifle) 罗宋汤(Russian soup) 沙丁鱼(sardine) 苏打水(soda water) 车胎(tire) 乌托邦(utopia) 维他命(vitamin) 华尔兹舞(waltz) 摩托车(motorcycle) 圣(saint)

有引申意义的

蹩脚(bilge) 发嗲(dear) 水门汀(cement,即「水泥」) 麦克风(microphone) 杀马特(smart, recently means overly stylish)

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In fact, the word "pidgin" itself is a pidgin word. It is the Chinese pronunciation of "business".

Other example, if I did understand:

Salmon - 三文鱼

The Cantonese pronunciation of "三文" is similar to "Salmon".

大人 - 太君(?)

It was said during the World War II, when Chinese people met Japanese soldiers, they had to call them "大人". But in Japanese, the pronunciation of "大人(tai jin?)" is similar to "太君(taijun)" in Chinese. So many people call Japanese "太君" by mistake. Until now, you can still see it in many TV series.

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