PIDGIN, or PIGEON, ENGLISH. A lingo" used in California and in the Pacific ports of Asia, between the Asiatics and mercantile foreigners. "Pidgin" is the word f r "business," as it issues from the guttnral organs of a Chinaman, as "eumshaw" is that for "commission" or gift. The Chinaman accustomed mainly to monosyllabic speech finds it easy to speak the English words of one syllable, or dissyllables whose 1:Itimates are vowels, or, he will vowelize words ending in hard consonants. For this gsotesque form of speech the foreigners rather than natives are responsible, since the former, shrinking from the difficulties of oriental speech, first encouraged the Asiatics to use simple foreign words. Pidgin English, though defying all known grammar, is yet available for every-day use, and is duly taught in classes by Chinese "professors," and is the daily- end ,sly means of communication between tens of thousands of people in China, And California. This mongrel dialect, as different from Chinese as ChinesN is from English, contains Portuguese, Malay, French, and Hindustan elements, besides English; but in many cases one word is used in a great variety of meanings. Prominent in the vocabulary are aube (French, &twit., to know), pecee (piece), peggy, (Malay, go away, take off, etc.) top-ride (up), etc. Its syntax is usually formed by arranging the words according to the Chinese order. A Japanese lad, in answer to the writer's question, Doko (where?), answered, " Me Yokohama go" (I am going to Yoko hama), according to the native idiom, which requires the object first and verb last.
Foreigners, in their own words, transformed into Pidgin English, think them to be native, while the native imagines they are foreign. Though most persons regard this .• lingo" as an absurd:3r silly kind of baby talk, unworthy of adults, and though the tribunals forbid it for testimony, and most printed specimens of it have a comic flavor, yet earnest students recognite in it it new language in embryo, and predict its ultimate status as an accepted tongid, believing that it will be a powerful aid in " westernizing" China, Japan, and India.
PIE, a well-known culinary preparation, consisting of a crust of dough or pastry, inclosing either meat or fruit, and baked in the oven. The origin of the word is very obscure. There are two kinds of pies, one in which a dish is used, as in cases where much juice or gravy has to he retained; the other, without the dish. The latter are called raised pies, and a partit ular kind of paste is required; which is made with hot lard and water, and must have sufficient consistency to stand up. When molded into the form or case of the pie it is filled with meat, usually game, and baked. This kind of crust is not usually eaten with its contents, Its it is considered unwholesome, it there fore merely serves as a ease for the inclosed viands.