TWO: "The Chinese find great difficulty in pronouncing r, which they almost invariably convert into l. They have a tendency to add a vowel sound (o or e) to words ending with a consonant. Bearing these points in mind, we readily see how 'drink' becomes dlinko, and 'brown' blownee. Final d and t are awkward for them to handle, and th is to their lips an abomination of first-class dimensions. 'Child' becomes chilo, and 'cold' is transformed to colo, in pidgin English. 'That,' and other words beginning with th, generally lose the sound of h, though sometimes they retain h and drop the t before it. 'Side' is used for position, and the vocabulary contains inside, outside, bottom-side (below), and top-side (above). Chop-chop means 'fast,' 'quick,' 'immediately;' man-man means 'slowly,' 'slower,' 'gently,' in the south of China; while at Han-kow, on the Yang-tse, it means exactly the reverse. At Canton or Swatow, if you say man-man to your boatmen, they will cease rowing or will proceed very lightly; say the same thing to your boatmen at Han-kow or Ichang, and they will pull away with redoubled energy."
View More Items