a creative collision of the two languages, which often produces head-scratching results.Hmmm. Read on and see if you agree that it's likely to be a problem of literal translation in many cases.
Documented terms (of which there are reputedly 2,500) include:
- 'drinktea' - closed (for business), from the Mandarin 'resting'
- 'torunbusiness' - open (for business) from the Mandarin 'operating'
- awkward gerunds, for example 'No Noising' - presumably 'Quiet Please'
- On Yangtse River cruise boat, signs on the cabin doors say, "Don't Bother" instead of "Do not Disturb"
- 'jumping umbrella' - hang glider
- And always handy, is a 'Collecting Money Toilet' - Public pay toilet (mental note - MUST remember this).
Other language concoctions include Konglish, Japlish, Singlish, Hinglish and of course Spanglish (I believe "they" made a movie with this title). Apparently there are approximately 60 of these hybrids increasing the number of words in the English (?) language to over 986,000 (in 2006). Just a squeak under 1,000,000.
We live in a world where one in three people now speak (some form of) English. Humanity seems to be doing its unwitting best to undo what God did thousands of years ago at Babel when He scattered everybody and confused their "one language and one speech".
Sources:
Disclaimer: I do not pretend to be an authority on this subject, merely a compiler of snippets I find in my research. Just because it's in writing doesn't make it true!
