Over decades, English’s role as a lingua franca and a postcolonial product of the British
Empire has raised a seemingly unresolvable issue: while works in English gain greater visibility and credibility globally because of their large readership, they struggle to convey terms that are too culturally specific. Fortunately, Amitav Ghosh’s multilingual and multicultural practices in the Ibis trilogy may suggest a solution to this troublesome issue, offering a culturally rewarding outlook on the potential of Anglophone literature. In the second book, River of Smoke, Ghosh depicts the everyday lives of characters from diverse ethnic, national, gender, and socio-economic backgrounds in the Fanqui City (1), the foreign enclave in Canton (2), in the 1830s. To narrate how these characters communicate, he incorporates multiple languages into English, including Bengali, Cantonese, Hindustani, and pidgin—a language system created by people without a shared language. This approach aligns with David Huddart’s concept of “World Englishes,” a shift from monolingual, imperialist English towards a plural form of “Englishes” that incorporates other languages and fosters “a multilingual future” (Huddart 134) (3).  I examine
the incorporation of Cantonese, as one example of culturally specific languages, into Ghosh’s World Englishes in Fanqui City. The multiracial and multicultural environment in Fanqui City challenges the global racial hierarchy that privileges white people, creating a space where Cantonese can influence the English and even mindset of both native and non-native Cantonese speakers, both Chinese and non-Chinese people. Overall, I argue that Ghosh’s incorporation of Cantonese not only depicts everyday communication among characters in Canton but also showcases and enriches the multiplicity, transnationality, and inclusivity of World Englishes, thereby balancing the power of English as a lingua franca and its postcolonial foundations.
 

Previous scholars have discussed certain aspects of Ghosh’s multilingual practice:
Antoinette Burton argues that Ghosh narrates “world history from below” through the
perspectives of marginalized individuals within the British Empire (75). Praseeda Gopinath adds that Ghosh narrates from below to reshape history through the use of “Englishes, various forms of spoken English that are infected by local languages and professional practices” (160). Akshya Saxena further adds a perspective on listening in relation to Ghosh’s use of accented English, arguing that characters’ deliberate switching of accents and use of vernaculars can be “not ethnographic or reliable” (222). Building on these, I aim to fill a gap in current scholarship by exploring Canton and Cantonese, which respectively serve as geographic and linguistic links connecting East and South Asia, as well as the British Empire. Geographically, Canton was the largest trading port in China during the Opium War, filled with traders and residents from across these regions. Linguistically, the incorporation of Cantonese into English extends Ghosh’s transnational language experiment. In this sense, I hope to enrich prior scholarship on the multiplicities of World Englishes and their relationship to space.
 

From 1757 to 1842, the Qing government confined all foreign trade to the port of Canton, historically known as the “Canton System” (一口通商). Theoretically, “Chinese authorities kept control through regulating who could be where,” primarily based on distinctions between ethnicity, class, and gender (Hellman 127). They also prevented Chinese people from learning foreign languages and banned foreign traders from learning Chinese. Yet in practice, there was always an intersection between local and foreign people in trade, language, and culture (Hellman 225-226). To Ghosh, “historians [are] interested in long-term trends” while “a novelist see[s] this past through the eyes of [his] characters…[his] task is to recreate their experience as fully as possible” (“Storytelling and the Spectrum of the Past” 1558-1559). That means that, if historians see the overall trend that the Canton System hinders China’s innovation and progress, novelists like Ghosh explore everyday communication between Chinese and non-Chinese characters that is theoretically prohibited, revealing perspectives that might be forgotten or hidden in history. The Ibis trilogy exhibits the same idea by showing that of “certain kinds of aliens there was no lack within the city walls” (Sea of Poppies 367). 
 

In Fanqui City, where most non-Chinese traders lived in Canton—the only Chinese
trading port and economic center at the time—the hierarchies among characters with different cultural backgrounds are based on the economic profits they could bring in from the opium trade. Bahramji Naurozji Modi (Bahram), who is Parsi and from Bombay, “[is] invited to join the Committee [of Chamber],” (4) the only group that regulates the Thirteen Hongs (5) and interacts with the Qing government (River of Smoke 186). This is due to “the custom for the Committee to include at least one Parsi,” because “many of the supply chains, especially of Malwa Opium, [are] controlled by Indian businessmen” (River of Smoke 185). As colonized people of the British Empire, Indians (and South Asians in general) are usually considered as the subaltern. However, in Fanqui City, Bahram is involved in the Committee of the Chamber, enjoying privileges like making decisions within the Committee, having enough money to afford Chi-Mei’s prostitution services. As a Parsi and a representative of Bombay’s elite companies, Bahram holds great power among Indian businessmen who control “many of the supply chains,” with the potential to bring significant economic benefits to the Committee. Ghosh explains this situation as “the peculiar circumstance of the Canton trade,” which is significantly different from “the racial norms that were followed by the clubs of the Indian subcontinent” (River of Smoke 185). While challenging the usual racial hierarchy, it also reveals the fundamental logic beneath it: in Fanqui City, economic value overpowers the stereotypical hierarchy based on race and ethnicity.

For the same reason, the Committee can dismiss British men if they threaten its economic
interests. Chinese authorities seize Mr. James Innes, a British opium smuggling captain, from transporting opium on a boat to Canton. The capture of Innes reduces the amount of opium about to be transported to Canton, not only threatening the Committee’s economic interests but also damaging its reputation in front of the Qing government. “Under no circumstances can this Chamber be allowed to dictate to any free merchant,” but the Committee still decides to deport Innes because he threatens its economic values (River of Smoke 321). This again challenges the racial hierarchy that values white people. An example of this hierarchy being upheld is that in the first book of the trilogy, Sea of Poppies, the British opium trader Benjamin Burnham exploits and sentences Neel Rattan Halder, a high-caste Indian businessman, through the manipulation of debts and paperwork that Neel does not fully understand. The British law that is based on liberty—“men of high caste should [not] suffer a less severe punishment than any other person”—plays a significant role in Neel’s conviction (Sea of Poppies 234). However, in Innes’s case, the British law that claims to guarantee the right of “a free merchant” fails to protect him. Unlike Burnham, the Committee chooses not to make any characters from the typical subaltern race—either Bahram from Bombay or the Chinese Hong merchant Punhyqua—scapegoats. Instead, the president of the Committee, Mr. Lindsay, claims that “Mr. Innes is not even a member of this body” (River of Smoke 325-326). While “this body” can refer to the Committee, the Thirteen Hongs, or the non-Chinese community in Canton, the Committee’s exclusion of Innes, by all means, indicates that it wishes to cut ties with him because of the economic harm he causes. This further highlights the unique power dynamics in Fanqui City, where economic interests are prioritized over racial hierarchies.
 

The prioritization of economic exchange, primarily concerning opium, in Fanqui City generates the sustained everyday interaction between non-Chinese traders and Chinese inhabitants, including merchants, servants, translators, and addicts. Within this hybrid community, non-Chinese traders’ need to communicate with Chinese people, who primarily speak Cantonese, makes English lose its usual singular, dominant, and imperialist power. Speakers of Cantonese, English, and other languages naturally form a kind of World Englishes that is neither purely English nor a direct translation of Cantonese, but a mixture formed by multiple culturally specific languages. As a non-English language, Cantonese slang and grammar influence the English speech of both native and non-native Cantonese speakers, including Chinese and non-Chinese people. As a result, the inclusion of Cantonese in English enriches the linguistic complexity of World Englishes and encourages greater tolerance of all languages and cultures.
 

Cantonese native speakers naturally integrate Cantonese slang into English, demonstrating their cultural identity and sense of belonging to the Cantonese communities. Evelyn Ch’ien defines the combination of English and speakers’ native languages as “weird English,” which is used to show “who the speaker is and how the speaker can appropriate the language” (8). When Cantonese native speakers—Ah Fatt, Chi-Mei (Ah Fatt’s mother), Mr. Compton (a print-shop owner on Thirteen Hong Street), etc.—speak English, they incorporate Cantonese slang directly. Many of these expressions have specific cultural and linguistic significance in Cantonese alone. When Neel, who was new to Canton, asks about Ah Fatt’s family—a Cantonese Tanka mother and a Persian father from Bombay— Ah Fatt responds, “Dai Lou, he has a woman. Not wife but…” (88). The Cantonese slang “Dai Lou” (大佬, meaning “brother”) originally refers to “the leader of a gang,” but it can also be used to address a man when “one is annoyed or surprised” (“大佬,” def. 1 and 3). In addition to indicating Neel’s gender, “Dai Lou” also expresses Ah Fatt’s frustration when explaining to Neel the social context in Canton, where foreign traders always engage with prostitutes, despite it being illegal, thereby giving birth to children of mixed race. It further implies Neel’s unfamiliarity and, in contrast, Ah Fatt’s familiarity with and belonging to the Cantonese language and culture. Later, when Neel gets confused by the Cantonese word for dollar, “man / maan” (文) due to its phonemic similarities with the English word “man,” Compton replies, “Mat-yeh?” (乜嘢, meaning “What?”) (River of Smoke 253). Although “Mat-yeh” cannot be written in standard Chinese script, in this context, it functions not just as an interrogative pronoun meaning “what” but also as “a gap-filler when [Compton] cannot find the right word” (“乜嘢,” def. 3). It further suggests that Compton hesitates because he does not understand why Neel is confused by the word, since Compton is familiar with Cantonese and the meaning of “maan” is clear to him. Without alternatives in either English or Mandarin/standardized written Chinese, these Cantonese slangs imply the speakers’ deep feelings and emotions, further suggesting their sense of belonging to the Cantonese language and culture.
 

Since these native speakers see the world and generate their thoughts in Cantonese,
Cantonese grammar—the order of words different than English, the lack of grammatical tenses and numbers, and the use of 尾語 (mei yü, end-of-sentence expressions)—also influences their speech in “weird English.” Every single time Chi-Mei says something in her “weird English,” no matter whom she’s speaking to, she misuses tenses, numbers, and word order. She asks Bahram: “Mistoh name belongi what-thing ah?” (River of Smoke 64). The grammatically correct version of this sentence in English should be “What (things) does Mister’s name belong to, ah?” Chi-Mei speaks “weird English” not only because she lacks formal English grammar education, but also because she naturally follows Cantonese grammatical patterns in her speech. The sentence she speaks in Cantonese would roughly be “先生個名係指啲乜嘢㗎，啊？” (word by word, “Mister’s name belong/mean what thing, ah?), which is closer to Chi-Mei’s words, compared to standard English. Unlike English, which adds tenses with suffixes like “-ed” and “-ing” to verbs, Cantonese expresses time with adverbs such as “today,” “in the past,” “usually,” etc. Cantonese’s lack of grammatical tenses makes Chi-Mei unable to use the simple present tense in English correctly, which should follow the structure of “What + do/does + subject + verb.” Additionally, Cantonese lacks grammatical number, so speakers can only figure it out through context. That means “名” could refer to both the singular and plural forms of the English word “name/names.” Hence, Chi-Mei mismatches the singular word “name” with the plural verb “belong” in her English speech. Furthermore, Chi-Mei adds a mei yü— “ah”（呀）— at the end of her speech. Although mei yü lacks actual meaning, it “captures the nuances of the language as it was spoken in daily [Canton] life…[and] carried grammatical, syntactical, and tonal significance” (Chow 108) (6). Cantonese grammar structures have a significant influence on Chi-Mei’s English speech, and that of other native Cantonese speakers like her. This further suggests that these individuals’ ties to the Cantonese language and culture shape their worldview.
 

In addition to native speakers, Cantonese slang and grammatical patterns also influence
the English speech of non-native Cantonese speakers. Living in Canton, the metropolis where Cantonese originated and predominates, people of other ethnicities cannot avoid interacting with local Cantonese speakers. As Sexena explains, xenophilia attunement can be “not ethnographic or reliable” (222). Although Bahram’s native language is Gujarati, his speech is “silted with the sediment of many tongues—Gujarati, Hindusthani, English, pidgin, Cantonese” (River of Smoke 208). Indeed, all the languages Bahram uses shape his hybrid identity. Among these languages, or at least like all of them, Cantonese phrases and grammar influence the way Bahram speaks English, when addressing native Cantonese speakers. When Punhyqua, a local merchant in Canton’s Thirteen Hongs, asks Bahram whether he likes the food, Bahram responds: “Too muchi like! Hou-sihk! Hou-sihk!” (River of Smoke 269). “Hou-sihk” is the transliterate pronunciation of the Cantonese slang “好食,” meaning “good food,” used in daily life. The italicization of “hou-sihk” indicates that this phrase is not only “[a] foreign word used in an English-language text,” but also a foreign word to Bahram, because it is not his native language associated with ethnicity (MLA Handbook 2.63). Instead of saying “good food” in English, Bahram uses this Cantonese slang directly, suggesting he is proficient in Cantonese, at least in everyday situations. Although, regarding English grammar, he makes errors with pronouns, numbers, and word order. “I like it too much" would be the corrected statement of “too muchi like.”  Bahram ignores the pronouns “I” and “it” and changes the word order. He instead follows the Cantonese grammatical structure in English, as Chi-Mei does, as explained in the previous paragraph. The Cantonese phrase for “too muchi like” is “好鍾意,” which can be translated as “very/much like.” This is a closer word-for-word translation of “too muchi like” than “I like it very much.” Bahram’s fluent use of Cantonese slang and incorporation of Cantonese grammatical patterns into English further suggest that, in addition to native Cantonese speakers closely tied to Cantonese culture and language, the Cantonese-speaking environment in Canton also influences people of other ethnicities, languages, and cultural backgrounds.
 

While the setting of Canton allows Cantonese influence on the English speech of both
native and non-native Cantonese speakers, several Cantonese phrases become naturalized in English, extending beyond Cantonese speakers to all characters in the novel. As the MLA Handbook suggests, “foreign words that have been naturalized into English through frequent use” do not need to be italicized (2.63). Ghosh directly uses several culturally and linguistically specific Cantonese words, such as “Fanqui” and “Hong,” without italicization. “Fanqui-town” replaces “foreign enclave,” and “Thirteen Hongs” replaces “Thirteen Industry.” Both words are culturally specific because the two locations they refer to existed only in Canton in the Nineteenth Century, and they are linguistically specific because they are used only in Cantonese, not even in Mandarin or other Chinese languages/dialects. Although neither word is commonly used in English due to their cultural and linguistic particularity, Ghosh intentionally avoids italicizing them because he uses them frequently in the fictional world of River of Smoke. The naturalization of culturally and linguistically specific Cantonese words suggests that incorporating non-English languages could foster inclusion within Ghosh’s “World Englishes,” thereby laying the foundation for a “multilingual future” (Huddart 134).
 

Incorporating Cantonese further fosters greater tolerance and inclusivity by encouraging
acceptance of different languages and cultures. In Sea of Poppies, Neel was very arrogant about his privileged education in English Language and Literature. On the ship Ibis, Neel’s identity transitioned from that of a high-caste Indian businessman receiving a prestigious education to that of a vulnerable prisoner being expelled to Martius. All he had to defend himself was his “perfect” English—the imperialist, singular language of the British colonizers that could showcase his prior privilege in caste, education, and economic status. Although he was able to cite Shakespeare in jail, “no words of his own would come to mind” (Sea of Poppies 283). The words are not his own because the English language and its literature belong to the British colonizers. Furthermore, as the colonized subject, he must borrow his words and thoughts from Shakespeare. In contrast, at present, Neel becomes much more tolerant and welcoming of non-English languages, signs, and gestures after becoming Bahram's munshi (personal secretary) in River of Smoke. “He pay[s] close attention, not just to what Bahram said, but also to the gestures, signs[,] and facial expressions with which he amplifie[s], enlarge[s] upon, and even negate[s] the burden of his words” (River of Smoke 208). Although Neel is always aware of different languages, he gradually becomes much more open-minded and interested in non-English, non-Western languages. In this multilingual, multicultural environment, he treats all languages and cultures with equal openness and respect. Along with the sound of Cantonese, Neel becomes interested in Chinese characters in general, as shown as follows:

[F]or [Neel] Canton offered no greater pleasure than the ubiquitous presence of the ideograms, on shop-signs, doorways, umbrellas, carts and boats. He had already learned to recognize a few of them: the character 人 for example, which was easy to remember because its two legs represented its meaning ‘man’ (River of Smoke 252-253).

Associating “no greater pleasure than” with “the ideograms,” this passage shows Neel’s love of Chinese writing. “Ideograms” refers to “a picture or symbol used in a system of writing to represent a thing or an idea but not a particular word or phrase for it” (“Ideogram,” def. 1). This indicates that, unlike phonetic English, Chinese is a pictographic language founded on visual resemblance. This dramatic linguistic difference allows Neel to explore another way language can work; in Shakespeare’s English, what he owns is the sound rather than the meaning; in Chinese, even though it is not his native language, he can visualize and feel the aesthetic values of words. While depicting Neel’s understanding of both the visual and literary meaning of the Chinese character for “man/person,” Ghosh uses only the Chinese character—“人”—rather than Romanizing it to illustrate both the visual and literary meaning of the Chinese character for “man/person.” 
 

In addition, Neel feels a sense of belonging in Hindustani and Bengali, languages he
previously refused to speak. On Ibis, Neel “would speak English whenever possible, everywhere possible” because only English could make him feel the sense of privilege he had lost. For Neel, Hindustani and Bengali were, in contrast to English, associated with low-caste Indians who did not receive an elite English education. Yet, in Canton, he not only learns new languages but also becomes more accepting of his own language and culture. He no longer sees Hindustani and Bengali speakers as lower caste; instead, he feels connected to them and to Indian culture, as shown in the following passage:
 

But Neel had another reason to frequent [Asha-didi’s] eatery: for him the foods of her kitchen were spiced by an additional reward: the pleasure of speaking Bengali. Asha-didi’s fluency in Hindustani and Bengali often came as a surprise to Achhas for there was nothing about her to suggest a connection with their homeland…she would answer with a laugh: You know there’s no jadoo in it; I was born in Calcutta and grew up there; my family is still settled there… (River of Smoke 303-304)

Other Indian Achhas primarily define the fluency of the Hindustani and Bengali spoken by Asha-didi, the Cantonese woman who owns a kitchen-boat, as “a surprise” because the language mismatches Asha-didi’s ethnicity. Asha-didi speaks these two languages so well because of her cultural background, having been born and raised in Calcutta. Her proficiency in Hindustani and Bengali, as well as her upbringing, connect her to Neel’s identities. The close linguistic and cultural ties between them lead Neel to often visit her boat-kitchen. Neel even associates “speaking Bengali” with the positive connotation of “reward” and “pleasure,” which he rarely did in Sea of Poppies. He not only feels connected to his homeland, Calcutta, but also cherishes positive memories of it. In this sense, he becomes more accepting of his languages and identities, which he rarely did in Sea of Poppies. This further proves that learning Cantonese, as one example of non-Western, culturally specific languages, can not only make characters more interested in this particular language itself but also help them find a sense of belonging in their native languages, which are also non-Western and culturally specific. Together, such a language-learning experience enables individuals to treat all languages and cultures equally, adding
another volume to the inclusion of World Englishes.
 

Situating River of Smoke in the multicultural, multilingual Fanqui City of Canton before
and during the Opium War, Amitav Ghosh depicts everyday interactions among individuals with diverse ethnicities, nationalities, genders, and socio-economic backgrounds. He narrates a unique power dynamic among those individuals, which is primarily based on economic benefits through the opium trade. This challenges the global racial hierarchy that empowers whiteness, and more importantly, creates a space where interaction between Chinese residents and non-Chinese traders becomes necessary. By incorporating Cantonese, as one example of culturally specific languages, into English, Ghosh creates a plural, inclusive form of World Englishes that acknowledges linguistic and cultural specificities. Cantonese influences the English speech of both native and non-native Cantonese speakers, as evident in their direct use of Cantonese slang and “weird English” shaped by Cantonese grammar structure. It also inspires learners to be more
tolerant and open-minded about all languages and cultures. Both aspects add multiplicity,
inclusivity, and transnationality of World Englishes, not just linguistically but also culturally. Such an innovative multicultural and multilingual practice may provide a compelling solution to the long-lasting discontent surrounding English: while English might be limited in depicting the experience of the dominant and imperialist culture, World Englishes have the ability to acknowledge cultural specificities while
reaching out to readers worldwide at the same time. Given the experience of the dominant and imperialist culture, World Englishes have the ability to acknowledge cultural specificities while reaching out to readers worldwide at the same time. I hope this paper, while contributing to prior discussions of Ghosh’s multilingual practice, also offers a potential solution to the seemingly intractable debate surrounding English. Potential research based on this paper could continue the discussion of World Englishes—for instance, comparing the languages Ghosh incorporates in River of Smoke and how he depicts Cantonese in the other two books of the Ibis trilogy.

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Explanatory Notes

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1.  Cantonese: 番鬼城, literally meaning “city of the foreign ghost.”

2.  A southern Chinese city used to be the largest trading port for opium in China in the 19th century, where Cantonese language/dialect originates from.

3. Huddart discusses the use of “World Englishes” in Hong Kong and Singapore. The other languages in his book primarily refer to various Chinese and Southeast Asian languages and dialects. I use the term “World Englishes” in a broader sense, encompassing any language, dialect, or culture.

4. Shorten as “the Committee” in the following passage, as “in Fanqui-town everyone spoke of it simply as ‘the Committee’” (River of Smoke 185).

5. Hongs: 行, meaning “industry.” Ghosh directly uses the word “Hong(s)” without italicizing it, and I will explain the purpose later in the paper.

6. Although Rey Chow discusses Cantonese mei yü in contemporary Hong Kong before 1997, it could apply to Ghosh’s portrayal of Canton in the 19th century because of their similarities: Cantonese is the predominant language, and international trade plays a significant role in both cities.