Re: The World Pidgin

Romilly wrote:

> >- Oi! Tes subener koste ke mucho a?
> >- Er koste ten fai dolar. Okei okei?
> >- No, es tai guei! No tine so mucho kash, se se?
> >- Okei, no prolemo, solo ten dos dolar, es beri beno we :)
> >- O reli?...no, no won bai ri, es enkor tai mucho de.
> >- Okei, sar, yo mei beri beno prais ge ti...sete dolar. Las prais a!
> >- Fai dolar, den es okei, grashas ti veri mucho we :)
> >- Okei ne, fai dolar okei, yo ser re ge ti, me es tai beno prais ge ti
> >  awa!
> >- Grashas, her tine fai dolar e!
> >- Grasha, her subener ti.
> >
>Delightful! Definite East Asian feel to it.....aside from vocabulary, it's
>almost "Bazaar Malay" in structure (which in turn is probably Malay vocab.
>over Chinese structure, so of course there's a resemblance!).
>Personal opinion/minor suggestion:  I'd like to see at least some final
>stops retained-- perhaps all neutralized to glottal stop, which could be
>written /k/??  So, to me, "mei" would have been more immediately
>recognizable if it had been "meik" /mei?/
Thanks for the encouragement :) From the feedback I've had since I wrote it,
including outside of the list, I've become more convinced now that a very
Western vocabulary (mostly Spanish/English) is ok, if I retain the Chinese
structure. I showed this to my Ecuadorian girl friend, who understood most
of it unaided; she immediately branded it as "Spanglish", something American
Hispaniohablantes may be familiar with (?). But the point is, she didn't
brand it as "Asian", which is what I feared. The Chineseness which offends
some doesn't shine so much through it.

As to your suggestion: I'm trying to avoid final stops as long as I can. Two
major contributors to the language, and the two main languages of the world,
Spanish and Mandarin, do not allow anything like that, and neither do I. But
not really because of them, more just because I don't like final stops. The
"mei" word was misconceived. It was a good example of where I should have
looked to a different source, when the word didn't conform well to the
phonology.

However, there are plenty of mistakes in this sample. Not even a Beta
version, more like a Iota version or something ;) Let me make an update now:

- Oi! Des subener coste ke mucho a?
- Er coste dis sinco doler. Okei okei?
- No, es tai guei! Yo no tene so mucho cash, se se?
- Okei, no prolemo, solo dis dos doler, es moi beno we :)
- O reli?...no, no won bai le, es encor tai mucho.
- Okei, don, yo fe moi beno coste ge ti...sete doler. Las coste a!
- Sinco doler, den es okei, grashas ti moi mucho we :)
- Okei ne, sinco dolar okei, yo bende le ge ti, me es tai beno coste ge ti
awa!
- Grashas, wala sinco doler e!
- Grashas, wala ti subener.

(just ignore the quirky orthography - I'll explain that later)

Oskar
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