Tây Bồi

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Tây Bồi

Spoken in

Vietnam
speaker extinct around 1980
Linguistic
classification
Language codes
ISO 639-3

tas

Tây Bồi , or Vietnamese Pidgin French , was a pidgin language spoken by Vietnamese who had not learned French . Typically they worked as servants in French households or learned to do so through their social milieu during the colonial era. Literally translated, the language means "French (Tây) [spoken by] male servants (Bồi)". During the French colonial era, the majority of servants in French households were male. The term is used by Vietnamese to indicate that their spoken French is wrong, grammatically incorrect, and weak.

Tây Bồi seems to be related to the "Français Tirailleur" - a pidgin language that was spoken by West African soldiers during the French colonial period between 1850 and 1960. However, this has not yet been adequately investigated and therefore cannot be confirmed.

"Bồi" is, as wrongly assumed, not the Vietnamese sound adaptation to the English word "boy" (boy). The word comes from the Sino-Vietnamese word "bồi" (陪) which means "to serve" or "servant", while "tây" (西) means "west". For this reason, the term Tây Bồi is a completely Sino-Vietnamese compound word (陪 西 - French servant) and not a Franco-Vietnamese compound.

The French government / colonial rulers opened French public schools to provide education for their compatriots and the children of foreigners. The staff was exclusively French. Vietnamese children were also admitted as long as they passed the specially designed entrance exams. The Vietnamese upper class spoke French and those with the French Baccalauréat could register at French universities or universities in French colonies. Today, standard French is taught as a second language in addition to English at some Vietnamese schools and universities.

Notably, Tây Bồi is similar to the "broken" French used in comics, which is spoken by foreign characters.

Examples

Tây Bồi Standard French literal German German
Moi faim J'ai faim Me hungry I'm hungry
Moi cup Ma cup Me cup My cup
Lui avoir permission repos Il a la permission de se reposer He has permission to rest He has permission to rest
Demain moi retour campagne Demain, always return à la campagne Tomorrow me homecoming country Tomorrow I'm going back to the country
Vous pas argent moi stop travail Si vous ne me payez pas, j'arrêterai de travailler You not money, me stop work If you don't pay me, I'll stop working
Monsieur content of all danser Monsieur est content d'aller danser Mr happy go dancing The Lord is happy to go dancing
Lui la frapper Il la frappe Him beat them He punches her
Bon pas all Bon, n'y va pas Well, don't go Well don't go
Pas travail Je ne travaillerai pas No work I will not work
Assez, pas connaître Assez, je n'en sais rien Enough not know Enough, I don't know
Moi compris toi parler J'ai compris ce que tu as dit I understood you speak I understood what you said

(Bickerton 1995: 163)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tay Boi , ethnologue.com.
  2. ↑ Tay Boi , langwhich.com.
  3. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from December 11, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )