Between five and six million people use Tok Pisin to some degree, though not all speak it fluently. Many now learn it as a first language, in particular the children of parents or grandparents who originally spoke different languages (for example, a mother fromMadang and a father fromRabaul). Urban families in particular, and those ofpolice anddefence force members, often communicate among themselves in Tok Pisin, either never gaining fluency in a local language (tok ples) or learning a local language as a second (or third) language after Tok Pisin (and possiblyEnglish). Over the decades, Tok Pisin has increasingly overtakenHiri Motu as the dominantlingua franca among town-dwellers.[6] Perhaps one million people now use Tok Pisin as a primary language. Tok Pisin is slowly "crowding out" otherlanguages of Papua New Guinea.[7][6]
A 1971 reference book on Tok Pisin (referring to the language asMelanesian Pidgin)Hotel room door signs in Papua New Guinea
Tok originates from Englishtalk, but has a wider application, also meaning 'word, speech, language'.[8]Pisin derives from the English wordpidgin;[8] the latter, in turn, may originate in the wordbusiness, due to the typical development and use of pidgins as inter-ethnic trade languages.[9]
While Tok Pisin's name in the language isTok Pisin, it is also called "New Guinea Pidgin"[10] in English. Papua New Guineananglophones often call Tok Pisin "Pidgin" when speaking English.[note 1] This usage of "Pidgin" (with capital P) differs from the termpidgin (language) as used in linguistics. In spite of its name,Tok Pisin is not a pidgin in the latter sense, because it has become a first language for many people (rather than simply alingua franca to facilitate communication with speakers of other languages). As such, it is considered acreole in linguistic terminology.[note 2]
The Tok Pisin language is a result of Pacific Islanders intermixing, when people speaking numerous different languages were sent to work on plantations in Queensland and various islands (seeSouth Sea Islander andblackbirding). The labourers began to develop a pidgin, drawing vocabulary primarily from English, but also fromGerman,Malay,Portuguese, and their ownAustronesian languages (perhaps especiallyKuanua, that of theTolai people ofEast New Britain).
This English-based pidgin evolved into Tok Pisin inGerman New Guinea (where the German-based creoleUnserdeutsch was also spoken). It became a widely used lingua franca and language of interaction between rulers and ruled, and among the ruled themselves who did not share a common vernacular. Tok Pisin and the closely relatedBislama inVanuatu andPijin in theSolomon Islands, which developed in parallel, have traditionally been treated as varieties of a single Melanesian Pidgin English or "Neo-Melanesian" language. The flourishing of the mainly English-based Tok Pisin in German New Guinea (despite the language of the metropolitan power being German) contrasts withHiri Motu, the lingua franca ofPapua, which was derived not from English but fromMotu, the vernacular of the indigenous people of thePort Moresby area.
A bilingual sign in English and Tok Pisin, displayed at theLae War Cemetery (Lae, Papua New Guinea).
Along withEnglish andHiri Motu, Tok Pisin is one of Papua New Guinea's three official languages. It is frequently the language of debate in thenational parliament. Most government documents are produced in English, but public information campaigns are often partially or entirely in Tok Pisin. While English is the main language in the education system, some schools use Tok Pisin in the first three years of elementary education to promote early literacy.
There are considerable variations in vocabulary and grammar in various parts of Papua New Guinea, with distinct dialects in theNew Guinea Highlands, the north coast of Papua New Guinea, and islands outside of New Guinea. For example, Pidgin speakers fromFinschhafen speak rather quickly and often have difficulty making themselves understood elsewhere. The variant spoken onBougainville andBuka is moderately distinct from that ofNew Ireland andEast New Britain but is much closer to that than it is to thePijin spoken in the rest of the Solomon Islands.
Tok Pisin has a smaller number ofphonemes than itslexifier language,English.[13] It has around 24 core phonemes:[13] 5vowels and around 19consonants. This varies with the localsubstrate languages and the speaker's level of education. More educated speakers, and/or those where the substrate language(s) have larger phoneme inventories, may have as many as 10 distinct vowels.
Nasal plus plosive offsets lose the plosive element in Tok Pisin; e.g., Englishhand becomes Tok Pisinhan. Furthermore,voiced plosives become voiceless at the ends of words, so that Englishpig is rendered aspik in Tok Pisin.
/t/,/d/, and/l/ can be either dental or alveolar consonants, while/n/ is only alveolar.
In most Tok Pisin dialects, the phoneme/r/ is pronounced as thealveolar tap or flap,[ɾ]. There can be variation between/r/ and/l/.[14]
The labiodental fricatives/fv/ may be marginal, with contrastive use present only in heavily Anglicized varieties.[13] The use of/f/ vs./p/ is variable.[15] There is also variation between/f/ and/v/ in some words, such asfaif/faiv 'five'.[16]
Theverb has a suffix,-im (< Eng.him) to indicatetransitivity (luk, "look";lukim, "see"). But some verbs, such askaikai "eat", can be transitive without it. Tense is indicated by the separate wordsbai (future) (< Eng.by and by) andbin (past) (< Eng.been). The present progressive tense is indicated by the wordstap; e.g.,Hem kaikai stap "He is eating".
Thenoun does not indicate number, though pronouns do.
Adjectives usually take the suffix-pela (now often pronounced-pla, though more so for pronouns, and-pela for adjectives; from "fellow") when modifying nouns; an exception isliklik "little".[note 3] It is also found on numerals and determiners:
mitripela (both of them, and I) Eng. *me three fellow
mipela (all of them, and I) Eng. *me fellow
1st inclusive
–
yumitupela (you and I) < Eng. *you me two fellow
yumitripela (both of you, and I) < Eng. *you me three fellow
yumipela or yumi (all of you, and I) < Eng. *you me fellow or *you me
2nd
yu (thou) < Eng.you
yutupela (you two) < Eng. *you two fellow
yutripela (you three) < Eng. *you three fellow
yupela (you four or more) < Eng. *you fellow
3rd
em (he/she/it) < Eng.him
tupela (they two) < Eng. *two fellow
tripela (they three) < Eng. *three fellow
ol (they four or more) < Eng.all
Reduplication is very common in Tok Pisin. Sometimes it is used as a method of derivation; sometimes words just have it. Some words are distinguished only by reduplication:sip "ship",sipsip "sheep".
thegenitive prepositionbilong (etym. < Eng.belong), which is equivalent to "of", "from" and some uses of "for": e.g.Ki bilong yu "your key";Ol bilong Godons "They are from Gordon's".
theoblique prepositionlong (etym. < Eng.along), which is used for various other relations (such aslocative ordative): e.g.Mipela i bin go long blekmaket. "We went to the black market".
Somephrases are used as prepositions, such as 'long namel (bilong)', "in the middle of".
Several of these features derive from the common grammatical norms ofAustronesian languages,[note 4] usually in a simplified form. Other features, such asword order, are closer to English.
Sentences with a 3rd-person subject often put the wordi immediately before the verb. This may or may not be written separate from the verb, occasionally written as a prefix. Although the word is thought to be derived from "he" or "is", it is not itself a pronoun or a verb but a grammatical marker used in particular constructions, e.g.,Kar i tambu long hia is "car forbidden here", i.e., "no parking".
Tok Pisin developed out of regional dialects of the local inhabitants' languages and English, brought into the country when English speakers arrived. Four phases in Tok Pisin's development were laid out by Loreto Todd.
Casual contact between English speakers and local people developed a marginal pidgin.
Pidgin English was used between the local people. The language expanded from the users' mother tongue.
As the interracial contact increased, the vocabulary expanded according to the dominant language.
In areas where English was the official language, a depidginization occurred (Todd, 1990).
Tok Pisin is also known as a "mixed" language. This means that it consists of characteristics of different languages. Tok Pisin obtained most of its vocabulary from English (i.e., English is itslexifier). The origin of the syntax is a matter of debate. Edward Wolfers claimed that the syntax is from the substratum languages—the languages of the local peoples.[23]Derek Bickerton's analysis of creoles, on the other hand, claims that the syntax of creoles is imposed on the grammarless pidgin by its first native speakers: the children who grow up exposed to only a pidgin rather than a more developed language such as one of the local languages or English. In this analysis, the original syntax of creoles is in some sense the default grammar humans are born with.
Pidgins are less elaborated than non-Pidgin languages. Their typical characteristics found in Tok Pisin are:
A smaller vocabulary which leads to metaphors to supply lexical units:
Less differentiated phonology:[p] and[f] are not distinguished in Tok Pisin (they are in free variation). Thesibilants/s/,/z/,/ʃ/,/ʒ/,/tʃ/, and/dʒ/ are also not distinguished.
All of the English wordsfish,peach,feast,piss, andpeace would have been realised in Tok Pisin aspis. In fact, the Tok Pisinpis means "fish" (and usually has a sound closer to [ɪ], almost like the English wordpiss). Englishpiss was reduplicated to keep it distinct: thuspispis means "urine" or "to urinate".
Likewise,sip in Tok Pisin could have represented Englishship,jib,jeep,sieve,sheep, orchief. In fact, it means "ship".
The use of circumlocutions to compensate for limited vocabulary is a familiar process in pidgin languages. Tok Pisin is no different: considerbel i no laikim kaikai "food intolerance" (literally "the belly does not like the food"). In other cases, Tok Pisin speakers borrow words from other languages (most often English) to express unfamiliar concepts.
This frequent use of circumlocutions and borrowing of words for English has led to less frequently used words often possessing a large number of synonyms;toilet paper has three Tok Pisin terms:pepa bilong toilet (literally "paper for the toilet"),pekpek pepa (literally "feces paper"), andtoilet pepa (from English "toilet paper").
However, Tok Pisin has become especially known for its supposed use of very lengthycircumlocutions. Two commonly-cited examples relate to thepiano and thehelicopter.
The following Tok Pisin "names" for the piano were recorded by early 20th-century writers:[25]: 227–8
big fellow box spose whiteman fight him he cry too much (1902)
box belong cry ("screaming box") (1902)
big fellow bokkes, suppose missis he fight him, he cry too much (1911)
bigfela bokis yu fait-im i krai (1921)
bikpela bokis bilong krai taim yu paitim na kikim em (1969)
Linguists observe that these circumlocutions are unstablead hoc descriptions of an object, rather than set "words" or names. The situation is comparable to a Tok Pisin-English dictionary's definition of a Tok Pisin word with no English equivalent, such asmilis being defined as "coconut milk made from shedding coconut meat in the water of a ripe nut"; nobody would suggest that this lengthy expression is the "English name" for this drink.[25]: 225
Secondly, it is often claimed thatmixmaster bilongJesus Christ is the Tok Pisin word for "helicopter" (theSunbeam Mixmaster was an electricfood processor popular in the United States and Australia). Thisfactoid appeared as early as 1965[26] and still circulates online today. However, the phrase appears to be a fabrication byexpatriates working in New Guinea.[25]: 231 [27][28] Linguists point out that helicopters, introduced to New Guinea by oil search teams,[26] would have been far more familiar to early Tok Pisin speakers than electric food processors.[28]
Many words in the Tok Pisin language are derived fromEnglish (withAustralian influences), indigenousMelanesian languages, andGerman (part of the country was under German rule until 1919). Some examples:
as = "bottom", "cause", "beginning" (fromass/arse).As ples bilong em = "his birthplace".As bilong diwai = "the stump of a tree".
bagarap(im) = "broken", "to break down" (frombugger up). The word is commonly used, with no vulgar undertone, in Tok Pisin and even in Papua New Guinea English.
bagarap olgeta = "completely broken"
balus = "bird" or more specifically a pigeon or dove (an Austronesian loan word); by extension "aeroplane"
belo = "bell", as inbelo bilong lotu = "church bell". By extension "lunch" or "midday break" (from the bell rung to summon diners to the table). A fanciful derivation has been suggested from the "bellows" of horns used by businesses to indicate the beginning of the lunch hour, but this seems less likely than the straightforward derivation.
bensin = "petrol/gasoline" (from GermanBenzin)
bilong wanem? = "why?"
braun = "brown"
buai = "betelnut"
bubu = "grandparent", any elderly relation; also "grandchild". Possibly fromHiri Motu, where it is a familiar form of "tubu", as in "tubuna" or "tubugu".
kakaruk = "chicken" (probably onomatapoetic, from the crowing of the rooster)
kamap = "arrive", "become" (fromcome up)
kisim = "get", "take" (fromget them)
lotu = "church", "worship" from Fijian, but sometimessios is used for "church"
magani = "wallaby"
bikpela magani = "kangaroo" ("big wallaby")
mangi/manki = "small boy"; by extension, "young man" (probably from the English jocular/affectionate usagemonkey, applied to mischievous children, although a derivation from the GermanMännchen, meaning "little man", has also been suggested)
pisin = "bird" (frompigeon). (The homophony of this word with the name of the language has led to a limited association between the two;Mian speakers, for example, refer to Tok Pisin aswan weng, literally "bird language".)
susa = "sister", nowadays very commonly supplanted bysista. Some Tok Pisin speakers usesusa for a sibling of the opposite gender, while a sibling of the same gender as the speaker is ab(a)rata.
tambu = "forbidden", but also "in-laws" (mother-in-law, brother-in-law, etc.) and other relatives whom one is forbidden to speak to, or mention the name of, in some PNG customs (fromtabu ortambu invarious Austronesian languages, the origin of Eng.taboo)
Yumi olgeta mama karim umi long stap fri na wankain long wei yumi lukim i gutpela na strepela tru. Yumi olgeta igat ting ting bilong wanem samting i rait na rong na mipela olgeta i mas mekim gutpela pasin long ol narapela long tingting bilong brata susa.[29]
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights in English:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[30]
^The published court reports of Papua New Guinea refer to Tok Pisin as "Pidgin": see for exampleSchubert v The State [1979] PNGLR 66.
^See theGlottolog entry for Tok Pisin (itself evidence that the linguistic community considers it a language in its own right, and prefers to name itTok Pisin), as well as numerous references therein.
^Liklik can also be used as anadverb meaning "slightly", as indispela bikpela liklik ston, "this slightly big stone".
^The languageTolai isoften named[citation needed] as having had an important influence on early Tok Pisin.
Mühlhäusler, Peter; Dutton, Thomas Edward; Romaine, Suzanne (2003).Tok Pisin Texts from the Beginning to the Present. Varieties of English Around the World. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.doi:10.1075/veaw.t9.ISBN978-90-272-4718-6.
Mundhenk, Norm (1990). "Linguistic decisions in the Tok Pisin Bible".Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Pidgins and Creoles in Melanesia. Studies in Language Companion Series. Vol. 20. p. 345.doi:10.1075/slcs.20.16mun.ISBN978-90-272-3023-2.
—— (1991). "The Pacific". In Cheshire, Jenny (ed.).English Around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 619–636.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511611889.042.ISBN978-0-521-39565-6.
—— (1992).Language, education, and development: Urban and rural Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea. Oxford studies in language contact. Oxford: Clarendon Press.ISBN978-0-19-823966-6.
Smith, Geoff P. (2002).Growing Up With Tok Pisin: Contact, Creolization, and Change in Papua New Guinea's National Language. London: Battlebridge Publications.ISBN978-1-903292-06-8.OCLC49834526.
—— (2008). "Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea: phonology". In Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd (eds.).Varieties of English 3: The Pacific and Australasia. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 188–209.ISBN978-3-11-019637-5.
Verhaar, John W.M. (1995).Toward a Reference Grammar of Tok Pisin: An Experiment in Corpus Linguistics. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications, no. 26. Vol. 26. Honolulu:University of Hawaiʻi Press.ISBN9780824816728.JSTOR20006762.{{cite book}}:|journal= ignored (help)
Volker, C.A. (2008).Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin English Dictionary. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-555112-9.
Wolfers, Edward (1971). "A report on Neo-Melanesian". InDell H. Hymes (ed.).Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Proceedings of a conference held at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, April 1968. Cambridge University Press. pp. 413–422.ISBN9780521078337.
Wurm, S. A.; Mühlhäusler, P., eds. (1985).Handbook of Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin). Languages For Intercultural Communication In The Pacific Area Project of The Australian Academy of The Humanities, no. 1. Australian National University:Pacific Linguistics.hdl:1885/145234.ISBN978-0-85883-321-0.OCLC12883165.
Revising the Mihalic ProjectArchived 2016-09-05 at theWayback Machine, a collaborative internet project to revise and update Fr. Frank Mihalic'sGrammar and Dictionary of Neo-Melanesian. An illustrated online dictionary of Tok Pisin.
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