pigeon-french

Updated: July 5, 2025

Immediately we are made at home, but conversation languishes. He knows nothing but the pure Kabyle tongue, and cannot speak the mixed language of the coasts, called Sabir, which is the pigeon-French of Algiers and Philippeville. "Enta sabir el arbi?" "Knowest thou Arabic?" asks our host. "Makach" "No," we reply. "Enta sabir el Ingles?" "Canst thou speak English?"

Various - Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873