Hiri Motu, also known asPolice Motu,Pidgin Motu, or justHiri, is a language ofPapua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of its capital city,Port Moresby.[2]
It is a simplified version ofMotu, from theAustronesian language family. Although it is strictly neither apidgin nor acreole, it possesses some features from both language types.Phonological andgrammatical differences make Hiri Motu notmutually intelligible with Motu. The languages are lexically very similar, and retain a common, albeit simplified, Austronesian syntactical basis. It has also been influenced to some degree byTok Pisin.
Even in the areas where it was once well established as alingua franca, the use of Hiri Motu has been declining in favour ofTok Pisin andEnglish for many years. The language has some statutory recognition.[note 1]
The termhiri is the name for the traditional trade voyages that created a culture and style of living for theMotu people. Hiri Motu became a common language for a police force known as Police Motu.
The nameHiri Motu was conceptualised in the early 1970s during a conference held by the Department of Information and Extension Services. During the conference, the committee recommended the nameHiri Motu for several reasons.
The language's history is older than the namePolice Motu implies. That was recommended because it was simplified from the language of the Motu people, which was the language used when they traded goods with their customers.
Police Motu was then never used as a language of trade or social contact. Since the unity of New Guinea Police Force in 1946, Police Motu had lost most of its functions in police work. Pidgin[clarification needed] was adopted at the time and was used with the majority of the police force.
The committee thought that the new name should have some meaning behind it. Instead of associating a language with the police, they thought the language should reflect the legacy of the language and how it is used in everyday life.
TheMotu people are native inhabitants of Papua New Guinea who live along the southern coastal line of their country. They typically live in dry areas, on theleeward side of the mountain, where dry seasons are harsh on the people who live there. Traditional Hiri voyages carried prized treasures to the people of theGulf of Papua.
Hiri Motu has two dialects: "Austronesian" and "Papuan". Both dialects are Austronesian in both grammar and vocabulary due to their derivation from Motu; the dialect names refer to the first languages spoken by users of thislingua franca. The "Papuan" dialect (also called "non-central") was more widely spoken and was, at least from about 1964, used as the standard for official publications. The "Austronesian" (or "central") dialect is closer to Motu in grammar and phonology, and its vocabulary is both more extensive and closer to the original language. It was theprestige dialect, which was regarded by speakers as being more "correct".
The distinction between Motu and its "pidgin" dialects has been described as blurred. They form a continuum from the original "pure" language, through the established creoles, to what some writers have suggested constitutes a form of "Hiri Motu–based pidgin" used as a contact language with people who had not fully acquired Hiri Motu, such as the Eleman and Koriki.[3]
In the Hiri Motu language, thedistinction between "inclusive" and "exclusive" forms of 'we' is very important. In the former case, 'we' applies to the speaker and listener while in the latter case 'we' does not include the listener.
Hiri Motu uses postpositions. A standard postposition isai, which can mean 'in', 'on', or 'at'. For example,maua ai means 'in the box',pata ai means 'on the table', andKonedobu ai means 'at Konedobu (a location in Papua)'.
Because Hiri Motu does not allow double vowels,ai will often fuse with the word. Some examples:
There are twoword orders in Hiri Motu:subject–object–verb (SOV) andobject-subject-verb (OSV), both of which can be used interchangeably (OSV is more common in Hiri Motu). These sentence structures either start with a subject which is followed by an object, or vice versa start with an object which is followed by a subject, and both end with a verb. The sentence always ends with a verb regardless of the word order.
As word order can be arbitrarily chosen, ambiguity may arise in some cases.
For example,Inai mero boroma badana ia alaia can either mean 'This boy killed a big pig' or 'A big pig killed this boy'. To solve this, a subject marker can be used. In Hiri Motu, the subject marker isese, which is placed immediately after the subject of the sentence.
With it, the sentence reads:Inai mero ese boroma badana ia alaia (literally, 'This boy <subject marker>, a big pig he killed.') - 'This boy killed a big pig.'
The subject marker should only be used in cases where ambiguity occurs. Subject markers are never used in sentences withintransitive verbs.
Hida always follows the noun it is referring to, whileedana always follows it.
Questions should be asked affirmatively, as otherwise some of the answers received can be confusing.
For example, receiving the replyoibe ('yes') to the questionla mai lasi? ('hasn't he come?') can mean 'Yes, he hasn't come yet'. If the person has arrived, the answer would be:Lasi, ia mai ('No, he has come').
When 'to be' is used as a connecting word, the particlesna andbe can be used and are interchangeable.
For example:Ia be mero namona orla na mero namona both mean 'he is a good boy'.
There is no Hiri Motu verb form for 'to have' in the sense of possession. In true Hiri Motu, a local would express that they have a dog with the phraseLau na mai egu sisia for 'I have a dog', (literally, 'I with my dog'.) There are no standards for these expressions in Hiri Motu.
The numbers 1–5 in Hiri Motu are, respectively,ta,rua,toi,hani,ima. The number system in Hiri Motu goes up to 100,000. Many of the numbers in Hiri Motu arepolysyllabic. For example, 99 in Hiri Motu istaurahanita ahui taurahanita. MostPapuans know the English number system and use that instead.
The language has a history pre-dating European contact; it developed among members of theHiri trade cycle (mainly insago andclay pots) between theMotu people and their neighbours on the southeast coast of the island ofNew Guinea.[note 2] In early European colonial days, the use of Hiri Motu was spread due to its adoption by theRoyal Papuan Constabulary (hence the namePolice Motu). By the early 1960s, Hiri Motu was thelingua franca of a large part of the country. It was thefirst language for many people whose parents came from different language groups (typically the children of policemen and other public servants).
Since the early 1970s, if not earlier, the use of Hiri Motu as a day-to-day lingua franca in its old "range" has been gradually declining in favour of English and Tok Pisin. Today its speakers tend to be elderly and concentrated inCentral andGulf provinces. Younger speakers of the "parent language" (Motu proper) tend to be unfamiliar with Hiri Motu, and few of them understand or speak it well.
^Specific legislation proclaiming official languages in Papua New Guinea seems not to exist – but see Constitution of Papua New Guinea: Preamble – Section 2/11 (literacy) – where Hiri Motu is mentioned (with Tok Pisin and English) as languages in which universal literacy is sought – and also section 67 2(c) (and 68 2(h), where conversational ability in Hiri Motu is mentioned (with Tok Pisin or “a vernacular of the country”) as a requirement for citizenship by nationalisation (one of these languages required)
^Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017)."Hiri Motu Trading Eleman".Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017)."Hiri Motu Trading Koriki".Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Brett, Richard; Brown, Raymond; Brown, Ruth; Foreman, Velma M. (1962).A Survey of Motu and Police Motu(PDF). Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Lister-Turner, R.; Clark, J.B. (1931).A Dictionary of the Motu Language of Papua (2nd (P. Chatterton) ed.). Sydney, New South Wales: Government Printer.NLA398750.
The Dictionary and Grammar of Hiri Motu. University of Papua New Guinea Press. 1976.NLA677945.
Wurm, Stephen A.; Harris, J. B. (1963).Police Motu: an introduction to the trade language of Papua (New Guinea) for anthropologists and other fieldworkers. Pacific Linguistics Series B, No. 1. Canberra: Australian National University.doi:10.15144/PL-B1.hdl:1885/146425.ISBN9780858830349.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
T.E. Dutton; H.A. Brown (1977)."Hiri Motu: The Language Itself". In S.A. Wurm (ed.).New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study, Vol. 3: Language, Culture, Society, and the Modern World. Pacific Linguistics C-40. The Australian National University. pp. 759–794.doi:10.15144/PL-C40.759.
