Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on March 08, 2005 at 23:19:41 from 195.93.21.2 user ACB.
In Reply to: Re: Talkee English bimeby posted by Robert Dilley on March 07, 2005 at 18:01:15:
It is interesting to type "China Coast Pidgin" into Google; the scholarly consensus seems to be that it was a dead language by Ransome's day. Certainly I have never heard "bimeby", which I assume was indeed "by and by" and which I further assume functioned as the Pidgin version of the Chinese tense modifier, indicating that the action is to occur in the future.
I have been told that something was "Never before this fashion", and of course "Long time no see" is a direct rendering of a Chinese idiom, but these are not real Pidgin.
Nuigini Pidgin is another matter, as witness the flight safety card which states, "Supos bulwas im buggerup..." and the very well known term for a helicopter "Bigfella mixmaster belong Jesus Christ"!