Tok Pisin | |
---|---|
Pronunciation | [tokpisin] [1] |
Native to | Papua New Guinea |
Native speakers | 130,000 (2004–2016) [2] L2 speakers: 4,000,000 [2] |
English Creole
| |
Latin script (Tok Pisin alphabet) Pidgin Braille | |
Official status | |
Official language in | ![]() |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | tpi |
ISO 639-3 | tpi |
Glottolog | tokp1240 |
Linguasphere | 52-ABB-cc |
Tok Pisin (English: /tɒkˈpɪsɪn/ TOKPISS-in, [3] [4] /tɔːk,-zɪn/ tawk, -zin; [5] Tok Pisin: [tokpisin] [1] ), often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin, is an English creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in the country. However, in parts of the southern provinces of Western, Gulf, Central, Oro, and Milne Bay, the use of Tok Pisin has a shorter history and is less universal, especially among older people.
Between five and six million people use Tok Pisin to some degree, although 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 from Madang and a father from Rabaul). Urban families in particular, and those of police and defence 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 possibly English). Over the decades, Tok Pisin has increasingly overtaken Hiri Motu as the dominant lingua franca among town-dwellers. [6] Perhaps one million people now use Tok Pisin as a primary language. Tok Pisin is slowly "crowding out" other languages of Papua New Guinea. [7] [6]
Tok originates from English talk, but has a wider application, also meaning 'word, speech, language'. Pisin derives from the English word pidgin ; the latter, in turn, may originate in the word business, which is descriptive of the typical development and use of pidgins as inter-ethnic trade languages.
While Tok Pisin's name in the language is Tok Pisin, it is also called "New Guinea Pidgin" [8] in English. Papua New Guinean anglophones often refer to Tok Pisin as "Pidgin" when speaking English. [note 1] This usage of "Pidgin" differs from the term pidgin (language) as used in linguistics. Tok Pisin is not a pidgin in the latter sense, since it has become a first language for many people (rather than simply a lingua franca to facilitate communication with speakers of other languages). As such, it is considered a creole 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 (see South Sea Islander and blackbirding). The labourers began to develop a pidgin, drawing vocabulary primarily from English, but also from German, Malay, Portuguese and their own Austronesian languages (perhaps especially Kuanua, that of the Tolai people of East New Britain).
This English-based pidgin evolved into Tok Pisin in German New Guinea (where the German-based creole Unserdeutsch 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 related Bislama in Vanuatu and Pijin in the Solomon 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) is to be contrasted with Hiri Motu, the lingua franca of Papua, which was derived not from English but from Motu, the vernacular of the indigenous people of the Port Moresby area.
Along with English and Hiri Motu, Tok Pisin is one of the three official languages of Papua New Guinea. It is frequently the language of debate in the national 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 the New Guinea Highlands, the north coast of Papua New Guinea, and islands outside of New Guinea. For example, Pidgin speakers from Finschhafen speak rather quickly and often have difficulty making themselves understood elsewhere. The variant spoken on Bougainville and Buka is moderately distinct from that of New Ireland and East New Britain but is much closer to that than it is to the Pijin spoken in the rest of the Solomon Islands.
There are 4 sociolects of Tok Pisin:
The Tok Pisin alphabet contains 21 letters, five of which are vowels, and four digraphs. [10] The letters are (vowels in bold):
Three of the digraphs (⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩, and ⟨oi⟩) denote diphthongs while the fourth, ⟨ng⟩, is used for both /ŋ/ and /ŋɡ/.
Tok Pisin has a smaller number of phonemes than its lexifier language, English. [11] It has around 24 core phonemes: [11] 5 vowels and around 19 consonants. However, this varies with the local substrate languages and the level of education of the speaker. 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. English hand becomes Tok Pisin han. Furthermore, voiced plosives become voiceless at the ends of words, so that English pig is rendered as pik in Tok Pisin.
Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ||
voiced | b | d | ɡ | |||
Affricate | dʒ | |||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | ||
voiced | v | |||||
Approximant | w | l | j | |||
Rhotic | r |
Tok Pisin has five pure vowels:
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
Close | i | u |
Mid | e | o |
Open | a |
The verb has a suffix, -im (< Eng. him) to indicate transitivity (luk, "look"; lukim, "see"). But some verbs, such as kaikai "eat", can be transitive without it. Tense is indicated by the separate words bai Future (< Eng. by and by) and bin (past) (< Eng. been). The present progressive tense is indicated by the word stap – e.g. Hem kaikai stap "He is eating".
The noun 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 is liklik "little". [note 3] It is also found on numerals and determiners:
Pronouns show person, number, and clusivity. The paradigm varies depending on the local languages; dual number is common, while the trial is less so. The largest Tok Pisin pronoun inventory is, [15]
Singular | Dual | Trial | Plural | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1st exclusive | mi (I) < Eng. me | mitupela (he/she and I) < Eng. *me two fellow | 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".
There are only two proper prepositions:
Some phrases are used as prepositions, such as 'long namel (bilong)', "in the middle of".
Several of these features derive from the common grammatical norms of Austronesian languages [note 4] – although usually in a simplified form. Other features, such as word order, are however closer to English.
Sentences which have a 3rd person subject often put the word i 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".
Past tense: marked by bin (< Eng. been):
Continuative same tense is expressed through: verb + i stap.
Completive or perfective aspect expressed through the word pinis (< Eng. finish):
Transitive words are expressed through -im (< Eng. him):
Future is expressed through the word "bai" (< Eng. by and by):
Tok Pisin is a language that developed out of regional dialects of the languages of the local inhabitants and English, brought into the country when English speakers arrived. There were four phases in the development of Tok Pisin that were laid out by Loreto Todd.
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 the English language (i.e., English is its lexifier). 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. [21] 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:
Many words in the Tok Pisin language are derived from English (with Australian influences), indigenous Melanesian languages, and German (part of the country was under German rule until 1919). Some examples:
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Tok Pisin:
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:
A pidgin, or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from several languages. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the country in which they reside.
Bislama is an English-based creole language. It is the national language of Vanuatu, and one of the three official languages of the country, the other ones being English and French. Bislama is the first language of many of the "Urban ni-Vanuatu" and the second language of much of the rest of the country's residents. The lyrics of "Yumi, Yumi, Yumi", the country's national anthem, are composed in Bislama.
Torres Strait Creole, also known as Torres Strait Pidgin, Brokan/Broken, Cape York Creole, Lockhart Creole, Kriol, Papuan, Broken English, Blaikman, Big Thap, Pizin, and Ailan Tok, is an English-based creole language spoken on several Torres Strait Islands of Queensland, Australia; Northern Cape York; and south-western coastal Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Bugger or buggar can at times be considered as a mild swear word. In the United Kingdom the term has been used commonly to imply dissatisfaction, refer to someone or something whose behaviour is in some way inconvenient or perhaps as an expression of surprise. In the United States, particularly in the Midwest and South, it is an inoffensive slang term meaning "small animal".
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Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of its capital city, Port Moresby.
Unserdeutsch, or Rabaul Creole German, is a German-based creole language that originated in Papua New Guinea as a lingua franca. The substrate language is assumed to be Tok Pisin, while the majority of the lexicon is from German.
West African Pidgin English, also known as Guinea Coast Creole English, is a West African pidgin language lexified by English and local African languages. It originated as a language of commerce between British and African slave traders during the period of the transatlantic slave trade. As of 2017, about 75 million people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea used the language.
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Bukawa is an Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea.
Yabem, or Jabêm, is an Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea.
Samoan Plantation Pidgin is an extinct English-based pidgin language that was spoken by black plantation workers in Samoa. It is closely related to Tok Pisin, due to the large number of New Guinean laborers in Samoa.
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Tom Dutton was an Australian linguist specialising in Papuan languages and other languages of Papua New Guinea.
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