A corpus of Chinese Pidgin English

Abstract

Chinese Pidgin English (CPE) was a trade pidgin widely used in China between 18th to early 20th centuries. As a well-known contact language, grammatical description of the language is not lacking; however a systematic collection of primary data is found wanting. This paper reports on an ongoing project of the first online corpus of CPE and discusses sociolinguistic issues pertinent to the change and development of the language. The corpus includes primary sources of CPE represented in various languages. Linguistic variation is shown not only between English- and Chinese-language sources but is also found within Chinese sources published in different regions in China. While CPE originated and was used in the China coast, there is evidence that the pidgin spread to other parts of the world mainly as a result of movement of people via migration and trade (Baker & Mühlhäusler 1986). Appearance of CPE is found in historic newspapers and magazines published in New Zealand and America. While the use of CPE extended for more than two hundred years and was employed by speakers of different ethnicities, little attention has been paid to children speakers. The corpus reveals that sources reporting on children speaking or knowing the pidgin, though rare, are not nonexistent. The construction of this CPE corpus aims to provide a comprehensive review of the history of the language, encompassing linguistic as well as social issues