Page:Pidgin-English sing-song; or, Songs and stories in the China-English dialect (IA pidginenglishsin00lelaiala).pdf/19

 a curious fact, which has been observed by three of my friends—Messrs Giles, Simson, and Ng-Choy—that instances occasionally occur in which Chinese from different districts, speaking very different dialects, have recourse to "Pidgin" as a medium of conversation, just as men of different nations in the Levant were at one time wont to use the lingua franca.

I trust that the critical reader will make allowance for the difficulty of spelling a jargon for which no standard is established, and which varies with every speaker. One gentleman, many years resident in China, thinks that the word have should be written as in English; a well-educated native to whom Pidgin was as a boy a step-mother tongue is positive that hab is the popular pronunciation, while the printed Chinese vocabulary for servants gives hop. The same difficulty is found as to th, which is in the mouth of a beginner either the Spanish or English d, or a plain t, but which is by many given correctly enough. If I have sometimes given one and sometimes the other pronunciation, it is not through carelessness; and I have done so in such a manner as to illustrate different phases of expression. But actual consistency is rendered impossible by the fact that one man often gives