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Literary notes about pidgin (AI summary)

In literary works, "pidgin" is used to denote a simplified, hybrid form of language arising from cross-cultural contact. Writers invoke it to capture the reality of communication among people with diverse linguistic backgrounds, whether highlighting the practical, everyday adaptations required in trade and social interactions [1, 2, 3] or emphasizing the way characters negotiate social hierarchies and cultural identities through a deliberately broken or mixed speech style [4, 5, 6]. In some narratives, its use adds humor or underscores the perceived inferiority of a rudimentary linguistic form compared with more "refined" languages, while in others it becomes a marker of community membership and resilience, enriching the text with layers of socio-cultural commentary [7, 8, 9].
  1. Began in Italian and ended in pidgin English.
    — from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
  2. A few compliments in pidgin-English on both sides, some tobacco changing hands, induced an atmosphere of mutual amiability.
    — from Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski
  3. Pidgin or pidgin-speech may be defined as that variety of a language which is used exclusively by foreigners.
    — from The Principles of Language-Study by Harold E. Palmer
  4. As a literary language, it is far better than Chinook or Pidgin, far worse than English or Greek.
    — from International Language, Past, Present & Future With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar by Walter John Clark
  5. One always conversed with him in the pidgin variety.
    — from The Best Short Stories of 1921, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
  6. The Chinaman speaks and understands only "Pidgin" English because only "Pidgin" English has been used in communicating with him.
    — from What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know by John Dutton Wright
  7. 'Not my pidgin,' said the gunner, cautiously peering through the field-glasses he levelled through a convenient loophole.
    — from Between the Lines by Boyd Cable
  8. 16 He olo father, still as mouse, Chin-chin Joss topsidey house: 17 Allo tim he make Joss-pidgin, 18 What you Fan-kwai 19 callee 'ligion.
    — from Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1876 by Various
  9. "Pidgin English" means "business English," "pidgin" representing the Chinaman's attempt to say "business."
    — from Where Half The World Is Waking Up The Old and the New in Japan, China, the Philippines, and India, Reported With Especial Reference to American Conditions by Clarence Hamilton Poe

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