1858: More “broken China” with “whooping Chenook”
Here’s another neat demonstration of how two pidgins, Chinuk Wawa and Chinese Pidgin English, coexisted in the far west of North America.
Seeing as how it’s from the frontier era and is talking about non-White people, the following is of course racist as all getout.
Lady Echo, apparently (image credit: Tumblr)
It’s not the only source we’ve found using the term “broken China”, which must have been one of the recognized names for CPE.
You’ll see that this article also uses the older spelling “Chenook”.
Here’s our news clipping of the day from the earliest times Chinuk Wawa was spoken in interior British Columbia…with its already well-known CPE expressions in bold italics:
THE CHINESE FOR THE NEW DIGGINGS
The Celestials are evidently opening their moon-shaped
organs of sight to the advantages offered by the
Fraser [River] mines. Over two hundred natives of the
Flowery kingdom, having concluded to leave the
‘Melican diggings and flourish their shovels and
chop sticks high up on Fraser, took passage yester-
day on the Caribean for Vancouver. A confab be-
tween a Pallalk [a “Polack”] and a Chinaman would be highly
entertaining and instructive. Those queer old soli-
tudes which since the creation have been left undis-
turbed in their primitive simplicity, will now re-
sound with all the dialects spoken under the sun;
but we know of none more completely puzzling to
Dame Echo than will be the crashing souuds of bro-
ken China joined with the peculiar jargon of whoop-
ing Chenook. — San Francisco Globe.
— from the Nashville (TN) Republican Banner of August 3, 1858, page 3, column 2
