An Etymology for "Pidgin"

[henh...@gmail.com]

i often try to look up papers by the regular posters... this one which i just found is surely the most layman-friendly one !
it presents a theory which (i think) is completely new to me.


An Etymology for "Pidgin" (by) David Kleinecke
Volume: 25
Pages: 2
Journal: International Journal of American Linguistics
DOI: 10.2307/1263680
Date: October, 1959

___________________

wikipedia>>> Pidgin derives from a Chinese pronunciation[8] of the English word business, and all attestations from the first half of the nineteenth century given in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary mean "business; an action, occupation, or affair" (the earliest being from 1807).

The term pidgin English ("business English"), first attested in 1855, shows the term in transition to referring to language, and by the 1860s the term pidgin alone could refer to Pidgin English. The term was coming to be used in the more general linguistic sense represented by this article by the 1870s.[9][10]

A popular false etymology for pidgin is English pigeon, a bird sometimes used for carrying brief written messages, especially in times prior to modern telecommunications.[9][11]


____________________



----------- Did PTD say that there are 3 linguists in Sci.Lang?

>>> There are certainly more than that: PTD, Ross Clarke, Yusuf Gursey, Arnaud Fournet, David Kleinecke, Mścisław Wojna-Bojewski, and probably others who don't immediately spring to mind. António Marques and Ruud Harmsen probably don't claim to be linguists, but they know plenty about the subject.

[henh...@gmail.com]

The famous linguist, etymologist (Anatoly Liberman) says...
https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/
But surprisingly, my folders contain an opinion that even those two most knowledgeable researchers have missed, and I’ll mention it below for what it is worth.
https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/


sorry if this sounds too stupid, but what is the opinion missed by the 2 researchers ?




https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/
We could have ignored Kleinecke’s idea if it had not been supported by two eminent linguists: Robert A. Hall, Jr and Eric Hamp. As early as 1955, Hamp brought out a book Hands off Pidgin. It was followed by Pidgin and Creole Languages (1966), but to the American public Hamp is (or was) known as the author of another book with the fiery title [Leave Your Language Alone], which five years later (in the second edition) was renamed as Linguistics and Your Language, a paean to the descriptive, as opposed to the prescriptive, approach to language. Hall’s main areas of research were Romance and Creole linguistics, but he enjoyed the role of an enfant terrible and ..........
https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/

[Ross Clark]

On 11/06/2022 8:39 a.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 10:51:53 AM UTC-7, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
>> i often try to look up papers by the regular posters... this one which i just found is surely the most layman-friendly one !
>> it presents a theory which (i think) is completely new to me.
>>
>>
>> An Etymology for "Pidgin" (by) David Kleinecke
>> Volume: 25
>> Pages: 2
>> Journal: International Journal of American Linguistics
>> DOI: 10.2307/1263680
>> Date: October, 1959
>>
>> ___________________
>>
>> wikipedia>>> Pidgin derives from a Chinese pronunciation[8] of the English word business, and all attestations from the first half of the nineteenth century given in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary mean "business; an action, occupation, or affair" (the earliest being from 1807).
>>
>> The term pidgin English ("business English"), first attested in 1855, shows the term in transition to referring to language, and by the 1860s the term pidgin alone could refer to Pidgin English. The term was coming to be used in the more general linguistic sense represented by this article by the 1870s.[9][10]
>>
>> A popular false etymology for pidgin is English pigeon, a bird sometimes used for carrying brief written messages, especially in times prior to modern telecommunications.[9][11]
>>
>>
>> ____________________
>>
>>
>>
>> ----------- Did PTD say that there are 3 linguists in Sci.Lang?
>>
>>>>> There are certainly more than that: PTD, Ross Clarke, Yusuf Gursey, Arnaud Fournet, David Kleinecke, Mścisław Wojna-Bojewski, and probably others who don't immediately spring to mind. António Marques and Ruud Harmsen probably don't claim to be linguists, but they know plenty about the subject.
>
>
>
> The famous linguist, etymologist (Anatoly Liberman) says...
> https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/
> But surprisingly, my folders contain an opinion that even those two most knowledgeable researchers have missed, and I’ll mention it below for what it is worth.
> https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/
>
>
> sorry if this sounds too stupid, but what is the opinion missed by the 2 researchers ?

I don't know. Liberman seems to enjoy the confusion. He says "Hamp"
where he means "Hall" (twice, in the passage below). Maybe he's
referring to the "Bay Jing" idea, which has very little going for it.
(Guangjou (Canton) was the focus of early Chinese-English contact, not
Beijing.)
IMHO Shi's research has shown that the "business" etymology was right
after all.

[henh...@gmail.com]

thank you... i think i've found one more support for my Thesis that [linguists make BAD writers]
[BETTER linguists make WORSE writers]

Liberman (his writing) is better than most linguists --- he could 've had a student give some feedback, and this one could've been superb.

------- his Hook (in the beginning) was good, but it's not resolved.



as for Dr. D. Kleinecke's theory -- it seems so weak that i'm amazed that it was published at all, or that it got support from 2 eminent linguists

--------- omg... just one typo in one handwritten letter ????

[DKleinecke]

On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 10:51:53 AM UTC-7, henh...@gmail.com wrote:

> i often try to look up papers by the regular posters... this one which i just found is surely the most layman-friendly one !
> it presents a theory which (i think) is completely new to me.
>
>
> An Etymology for "Pidgin" (by) David Kleinecke
> Volume: 25
> Pages: 2
> Journal: International Journal of American Linguistics
> DOI: 10.2307/1263680
> Date: October, 1959

My etymology has been rejected by the community. But I still think I was right.

[Ross Clark]

I don't agree -- the author accepted it was based on slender evidence;
but there were serious problems with most of the other suggested
etymologies. I read it long before I knew DK from online, and I enjoyed
its very off-the-wallness. IIRC it was a short item that took up less
than one page of the journal.

So what is the point of all this? Are you compiling a dossier for the
prosecution -- The People vs. Linguistics?

[Ruud Harmsen via Google Groups <google@rudhar.com>]

[Sorry if this is answered elsewhere in the thread, but I couldn't find it.]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pidgin#Etymology gives:
==
From pidgin English, from a Chinese Pidgin English pronunciation of English business during trade in the Far East.
[...]
Other suggested derivations include:
Hebrew פִּדְיוֹן‎ (pidyón, “exchange; trade; redemption”)[1]
Chinese pronunciation of Portuguese ocupação (“occupation; business”)[1]
South Seas pronunciation of beach[1]
Portuguese baixo (“low”)[
==

Any of these yours? And if so, which?

[henh...@gmail.com]

(None of the above)


((mostly) reposting)

The famous linguist, etymologist (Anatoly Liberman) says...
https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/
But surprisingly, my folders contain an opinion that even those two most knowledgeable researchers have missed, and I’ll mention it below for what it is worth.
https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/


sorry if this sounds too stupid, but what is the opinion missed by the 2 researchers ?

( i was guessing that the [payoff] would be at the end )

( The Plant and Payoff is a technique in screenwriting that offers added depth and meaning to two or more moments in a story and engages the audience with a more satisfying viewing experience. )

[henh...@gmail.com]

https://elorganillero.com/blog/2004/11/15/pirates-and-kleineckes-etymology-of-pidgin/

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001947.html

He starts from the multinational pirates known as pechelingues, pichilingues, or pechelingas in Spanish-American slang of the 16th and 17th centuries. Another point of reference is "a trade pidgin known as Pichingli" in the Canary Islands in the 19th century.


------------- French [pecher] (pêcher) the verb to FISH ? the language of fishermen ?

[Daud Deden]

Haha.

My take:
business (n.)
Old English bisignes (Northumbrian) "care, anxiety, occupation," from bisig "careful, anxious, busy, occupied, diligent" (see busy (adj.)) + -ness. The original sense is obsolete, as is the Middle English sense of "state of being much occupied or engaged" (mid-14c.), the latter replaced by busyness. Johnson's dictionary also has busiless "At leisure; without business; unemployed.

BiSiGiNiS ~> PiDSiGiNis ~> PiDGiN
From English said -> Chinese heard & spoke -> English heard & spoke

Maybe mixed with bid.ding, big, begin, building, budget, batch etc.

Pidian?

Patois: mid 17th century: French, literally ‘rough speech’, perhaps from Old French patoier ‘treat roughly’, from patte ‘paw'.

Peon: Portuguese peão and Spanish peón, from medieval Latin pedo, pedon- ‘walker, foot soldier’, from Latin pes, ped- ‘foot’. Compare with pawn1.

Pawn(broker): late Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French poun, from medieval Latin pedo, pedon, foot soldier.

Seems to me that a critical element in early Chinese-European trade was security for long high-risk high-value voyages, with collateral being important.

Indian (New World) from Indigent/indigenous?

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 00:44:17 -0700 (PDT): "henh...@gmail.com"
<henh...@gmail.com> scribeva:

>On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 11:49:17 PM UTC-7, Ruud Harmsen via Google Groups <goo...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>> On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 5:42:34 AM UTC+2, DKleinecke wrote:
>> > On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 10:51:53 AM UTC-7, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > > i often try to look up papers by the regular posters... this one which i just found is surely the most layman-friendly one !
>> > > it presents a theory which (i think) is completely new to me.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > An Etymology for "Pidgin" (by) David Kleinecke
>> > > Volume: 25
>> > > Pages: 2
>> > > Journal: International Journal of American Linguistics
>> > > DOI: 10.2307/1263680
>> > > Date: October, 1959
>> > My etymology has been rejected by the community. But I still think I was right.
>> [Sorry if this is answered elsewhere in the thread, but I couldn't find it.]
>>
>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pidgin#Etymology gives:
>> ==
>> From pidgin English, from a Chinese Pidgin English pronunciation of English business during trade in the Far East.
>> [...]
>> Other suggested derivations include:

>> Hebrew ?????????? (pidyón, “exchange; trade; redemption”)[1]

>> Chinese pronunciation of Portuguese ocupação (“occupation; business”)[1]
>> South Seas pronunciation of beach[1]
>> Portuguese baixo (“low”)[
>> ==
>>
>> Any of these yours? And if so, which?
>
>
> (None of the above)
>
>
>((mostly) reposting)
>
>The famous linguist, etymologist (Anatoly Liberman) says...
>https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/
> But surprisingly, my folders contain an opinion that even those two most knowledgeable researchers have missed, and I’ll mention it below for what it is worth.
>https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/
>
>
>sorry if this sounds too stupid, but what is the opinion missed by the 2 researchers ?
>
> ( i was guessing that the [payoff] would be at the end )
>
> ( The Plant and Payoff is a technique in screenwriting that offers added depth and meaning to two or more moments in a story and engages the audience with a more satisfying viewing experience. )
>
>
>
>https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/
> We could have ignored Kleinecke’s idea if it had not been supported by two eminent linguists: Robert A. Hall, Jr and Eric Hamp. As early as 1955, Hamp brought out a book Hands off Pidgin. It was followed by Pidgin and Creole Languages (1966), but to the American public Hamp is (or was) known as the
author of another book with the fiery title [Leave Your Language Alone], which five years later (in the second edition) was renamed as Linguistics and Your Language, a paean to the descriptive, as opposed to the prescriptive, approach to language. Hall’s main areas of research were Romance and Creole linguistics,
but he enjoyed the role of an enfant terrible and ..........
>https://blog.oup.com/2018/07/etymology-pidgin-english/

Thanks!
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 04:36:59 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
<daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:

> My take:
> business (n.)
> Old English bisignes (Northumbrian) "care, anxiety, occupation," from bisig
> "careful, anxious, busy, occupied, diligent" (see busy (adj.)) + -ness.

Very similar to Dutch bezig, with the same meaning.

> The original sense is obsolete, as is the Middle English sense of "state of
> being much occupied or engaged" (mid-14c.), the latter replaced by busyness.
> Johnson's dictionary also has busiless "At leisure; without business; unemployed.
>
> BiSiGiNiS ~> PiDSiGiNis ~> PiDGiN
> From English said -> Chinese heard & spoke -> English heard & spoke
>
> Maybe mixed with bid.ding, big, begin, building, budget, batch etc.
>
> Pidian?

From here on, I say: too unlikely.

> Patois: mid 17th century: French, literally ‘rough speech’, perhaps from Old French
> patoier ‘treat roughly’, from patte ‘paw'.
>
> Peon: Portuguese peão and Spanish peón, from medieval Latin pedo, pedon- ‘walker,
> foot soldier’, from Latin pes, ped- ‘foot’. Compare with pawn1.
>
> Pawn(broker): late Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French poun, from medieval
> Latin pedo, pedon, foot soldier.
>
> Seems to me that a critical element in early Chinese-European trade was security
> for long high-risk high-value voyages, with collateral being important.
>
>Indian (New World) from Indigent/indigenous?

[Peter T. Daniels]

What an idiot.

"HenHanna" doesn't know the difference between Robert Anderson Hall Jr.
and Eric Pratt Hamp (both of whom were teachers of mine).

[henh...@gmail.com]

thanks again for the comments !

have you written an essay or paper that's Layman-friendly?


speaking of off-the-wall Etymologizing ...

my pet theory is that (Am.Eng.) HOBO comes from Jp adverb meaning [Here and there]

------------- In Japanese, hobo is plural form of ho 'side'. In the plural it takes the meaning 'all sides' or 'everywhere'. (or [all directions])



https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hobo#Etymology

https://www.etymonline.com/word/hobo

hobo (n.) -------- "a tramp," 1889, Western U.S., of unknown origin. Barnhart compares early 19c. English dialectal hawbuck "lout, clumsy fellow, country bumpkin." Or possibly from ho, boy, a workers' call on late 19c. western U.S. railroads. Facetious formation hobohemia, "community or life of hobos," is from 1923 (see bohemian).

[Daud Deden]

Hub (wheel), hobbe, hobnail, (knob, umbo, boss, bump, umlaut?)
https://www.etymonline.com/word/hub
Dunno.

[DKleinecke]

I think no one has looked hard enough at northern Mexican slang yet.

[Ross Clark]

You mean on the etymology of "pidgin"? No.
I did publish a couple of things on "Beach-la-Mar", which are not at all
technical:

1977 On the origin and usage of the term Beach-la-Mar. Te Reo 20: 71-82.
1978 A further note on "Beach-la-Mar". Te Reo 21:83-5.
(if you can get hold of our national journal)

But it's not as much fun as either "pidgin" or "hobo". I'm quite able to
enjoy multiple proposed etymologies for difficult words, even if in my
linguistic heart I believe only one (or none) is correct.

[Daud Deden]

I didn't know of the link between bislama and trepang.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-it-take-until-1606-for-people-from-the-Old-World-to-discover-Australia-when-Indonesians-couldve-discovered-it-a-lot-sooner/answer/Alexander-Christopher-25?ch=10&oid=361176002&share=a6597169&srid=RPhZF&target_type=answer