Kiautschou Pidgin German

Introduction

The Kiautschou German pidgin is a minor extinct pidgin spoken by German-educated Chinese in the Kiautschou Bay concession. The German pidgin never fully developed on its own, instead branching off of the pre-existing English pidgin. Though not extensively recorded, it can be inferred many different local variations exist.

The verb

Because of its nature as a pidgin, it typically did not have full conjugation like native German. Pidgins generally use invariant verb forms regardless of tense, person, or number.

Sample

Esselenzy nich wollen nehl Schampin, chinaboi gehen flotti
German: Excellenz wollen keinen Champagner mehr, der Chinesische Diener wird fortgehen
English: Your Excellency don't want any more champagne, the Chinese servant will go away

In the sample above, there are two verbs:

• wollen 'want'
• gehen 'to go'

Conjugation

• There's no inflection for person or number.
• Often the tense is shown by adverbs or time words (e.g., "morgen", "gestern"), not verb endings.