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During the last few days, there has been a flurry of excitement over the circulation of photographs and information concerning an old Chinese textbook for learning English.  Here are a couple of pages from the book (click to embiggen):

Articles about the textbook with photographs of pages from it appeared in the South China Morning Post and in People's Daily.  The book is titled Yīnghuà zhùjiě 英话註解 ("Notes on English" or "Annotations / Explanations of English").

The original edition pictured above dates to 1860 and was published in Shanghai.  It's interesting that the owner of this textbook is a collector far inland in Chengdu, Sichuan.

A reprinted version, dating probably to the 1880s, may be seen in this album on Kongfz.cn.  It is particularly convenient to be able to zoom in and out on each of the photographs here.

As you can see for yourself, the English is a variety of pidgin.  What's fascinating is that the Chinese translations of the English in big characters at the top of each section are mostly nonstandard Mandarin and in some cases barely intelligible.  When I first started to read them, I didn't realize that they go from right to left.  Below I transcribe each of the twenty-four sentences, provide Pinyin annotations, comment on the quality of the Chinese translations, and give a rough English translation based on my understanding of the pidgin and the Chinese.  I use a slash to indicate a line break.

First page

Nǐ huò huòzhě yào huàn huò yì kě 你貨或者要/換貨亦可 —— This is not standard Mandarin.  "You can exchange the goods if you want to."

Nǐ yào jiàn xiàng biérén qù mǎi 你要賤向别/人去買 —— Not standard.  I think it means “If you want something cheaper, go buy it from someone else.”

Biérén yǐjīng huán guò jià 别人已經還/過價 —— This is more or less what people would still say today.  "Someone else has already made an offer."

Wǒ yǔ péngyǒu qù zuò 我與朋友/去做 —— This is not standard Mandarin.  "I'll go do it with my friend."

Nǐ kěn jiādiǎn hángqíng 你肯加點/行情 —— This is not standard Mandarin.  "Could you add a few more market quotations?"

Biérén yào mǎi wǒ bùkěn 别人要買我/不肯 —— I think this is what people would still say today.  "If somebody else wants to buy it, then I don't want to."

Wǒ míngrì gěi nǐ huíyīn 我明日給/你回音 —— This is roughly what people still say today.  "I'll give you an answer tomorrow."

Nǐ huánjià shízài tài shǎo 你還價實在/太少 —— This is roughly what people would still say today.  "The price you are offering is really too low."

Rú péngyǒu cǐ huò kěn mǎi 如朋友此貨/肯買 —— Awkward and incomplete.  "If a friend is willing to buy these goods…."

Wǒ zhèyàng sī zuìduō 我這樣絲/最多 —— This is a little weird.  It would be better to say “ Wǒ zhèyàng de sī zuìduō 我這樣的絲最多” ("The silk that I have is mostly this kind").

Jiǎn yībàn Jiù shìle 减一半就/是了 —— This is not standard Mandarin.  "If you reduce [the price] by half, all right."

Tǎngruò péngyǒu bù kěn mài 倘若朋友不/肯賣——This is not standard Mandarin.  "If my friend is unwilling to sell."

Second page

Wèihé nǐ suànzhàng yào cuò 為何你算帳/要错 —— Not standard.  "Why did you make a mistake in your reckoning?"

Tā zìjǐ méiyǒu de 他自己没/有的 —— People would still say this today.  "He himself doesn't have any."

Wǒ wèi […] yībiān yǔ […] 我未 […] 一邊與 […] —— Damaged.

Qiàn wǒ zhǎot óu nǐ jīnrì kě fù 欠我找頭你/今日可付 —— This is a bit odd.  Zhǎotóu 找頭 means "change"; people also say z hǎolíng 找零.  "Today you can pay me what you owe me."

Wèishéme bù fācái  為什麽不/發財 —— People would still say this today.  "Why haven't you / I / we made money?"

Bùkě suíkǒu dāyìng rén 不可随口答/應人 —— This is normal.  "Don't answer casually."

Xiànglái méiyǒu zhè guījǔ  向來没有這/規矩 —— This is normal.  "We never used to have this rule."

Yīn mìng bù hǎo zhī gù 因命不好/之故 —— Sounds archaic and stilted (more literary than vernacular).  "Because [I] am unlucky."

Zhè shìqíng yǒu cuò fǒu 這事情有/错否 —— This is also a mixture of vernacular and literary.  "Has there been a mistake in this matter?"  N.B.:  The introduction to the book is in Literary Sinitic (Classical Chinese).

Bù kě bàndùérfèi 不可半度/而廢 —— “Bàntúérfèi 半途而废” ("give up halfway") is a set phrase dating back two millennia that is still in use.  It is misquoted here as "bàndùérfèi 半度而廢" ("give up halfway across").  "[You / I] can't give up halfway across."

Zhège rén bùshì hǎorén  這個人不是/好人 —— This is normal.  "He is not a good person."

Háng nèi yǒu jǐ/gè huǒjì 行内有幾/個夥計 —— This is normal.  "How many salesmen / salesclerks / partners do you have in your firm?"  The English here sounds positively elegant:  "How many assistants have you?"

Judging from this selection of sentences and from other sections of the book that I have scanned, it seems to me that one could learn an awful lot about the economy, society, culture, and language of a treaty port in mid-nineteenth century China if one would read carefully through the whole of it.

I will transcribe one example of the phonetic annotations to show how they work:

This affair have mistake

Dísī āwùxié hāfū mǐsītuīkè 笛司,阿勿鞋,哈夫,米司推克

By sheer coincidence, Sī Jiā 司佳, who received her PhD from Penn in 2006 and who teaches at Fudan University in Shanghai, just had her monograph on Language Contact and Cultural Interaction between Chinese and English in Modern History (Jìndài Zhōng-Yīng yǔyán jiēchù yǔ wénhuà jiāoliú 近代中英语言接触与文化交流) published in Shanghai.  In it she explains the importance of Yīnghuà zhùjiě 英话註解 ("Notes on English" or "Annotations / Explanations of English") (see pp. 35ff. and especially Fig. 1-1) and observes that Columbia University's library holds a copy of the original 1860 edition.

We may compare the English textbook under discussion in this post with another from around 1902 which uses the Cantonese pronunciations of Chinese characters to annotate the sounds of the English words:

• "'Spelling' English in Cantonese" (11/17/13)

For the technique of transcribing the sounds of English with Chinese characters, see also:

• "Spelling with Chinese character(istic)s " (11/21/13)
• "Spelling with Chinese character(istic)s, pt. 2" (6/16/16)
• "Writing English with Chinese characters" (6/3/15)

From time to time, I come across glossaries and textbooks of English phonetically annotated with Chinese characters that are still being published in China.  Around the time of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and Expo 2010 in Shanghai, they were particularly popular with older people who never learned English in school.  Above all, see the following post, which documents how the city of Hangzhou was distributing “crash course” manuals for residents to converse with international visitors during the G20 Summit that was held in September of this year:

• "Spelling with Chinese character(istic)s, pt. 3" (6/30/16)

With the universal learning of English by schoolchildren in China that has been going on for decades now, the phonetic annotation of English words and sentences with Chinese characters will become increasingly rare, except for humorous purposes.

[h.t. Mark Metcalf, Geoff Wade, Donald Clarke, and Bryan Van Norden; thanks to Jing Wen, Wenkan Xu, Maiheng Dietrich, and Fangyi Cheng]

November 5, 2016 @ 2:05 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Creoles and pidgins, Language and education, Phonetics and phonology, Transcription

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