Tok Pisin

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{{Infobox Language |name=Tok Pisin |familycolor=Creole |states=Papua New Guinea |speakers=3–4 million; 120,000 native speakers |family=English-based creole |nation=Papua New Guinea |iso2=tpi|iso3=tpi}}

Tok Pisin (tok means "word" or "speech", pisin means "pidgin") is the creole spoken in northern mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG), the National Capital District, and the New Guinea Islands. It is one of the official languages of PNG and the most widely used language in that country, spoken by about 4 million people as a second language and over a hundred thousand as a first language. Tok Pisin is also—perhaps more commonly in English—called New Guinea Pidgin and, largely in academic contexts, Melanesian Pidgin English or Neo-Melanesian.

Given that Papua New Guinean anglophones almost invariably refer to Tok Pisin as Pidgin when speaking English, it may be considered something of an affectation to call it Tok Pisin, much like referring to German and French as Deutsch and français in English. However, Tok Pisin is favored by many professional linguistics specialists out of a desire to avoid spreading the misconception that Tok Pisin is still a pidgin language; although it was originally a pidgin, Tok Pisin is now considered a distinct language in its own right due to there being speakers of it for whom it is a first language and not merely a lingua franca to facilitate communication with speakers of other languages. Since its formation, it has been steadily developing a more complex and unique grammar as it has undergone creolization.

1 Classification
2 Official status
3 Regional variations
4 Sounds
5 Grammar
6 Vocabulary
7 The Lord's Prayer in Tok Pisin
8 References
9 External links

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Classification

Tok Pisin's origins lie in the intermixing of Pacific Islanders who spoke numerous different languages as they were sent to work on plantations in Queensland and various islands (see South Sea Islander and Blackbirding). The labourers began to develop a pidgin, based primarily on English. The pidgin also took vocabulary from German, Portuguese and various Austronesian languages spoken on these labourers' islands of origin. This English-based pidgin evolved into Tok Pisin in German New Guinea (where the German-based creole Unserdeutsch was also spoken). It became the lingua franca -- and language of interaction between rulers and ruled and among the ruled themselves who did not share a common vernacular -- and it eventually became Bislama in Vanuatu, and Pijin in the Solomon Islands. Its flourishing in German New Guinea despite the language of the metropolitan power being German, obviously, rather than English, 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.

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Official status

Tok Pisin is used to some extent in the media and for government issues, though English is still preferred in these contexts. In some schools Tok Pisin is the language of instruction in the first three years of elementary education.

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Regional variations

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 (Pidgin speakers from Finschafen speak notably quickly and often have difficulty making themselves understood elsewhere) and the New Guinea Islands. 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 rest of the Solomon Islands.

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Sounds

Tok Pisin, like many pidgins and creoles, has a far more simple phonology than the superstrate language. It has 16 consonants (compared to English's (approximately) 25), and 5 vowels (English vowels vary considerably by dialect, but most varieties have at least 15). However, this varies with the local substrate languages and the level of education of the speaker. The following is the "core" phoneme inventory, common to virtually all varieties of Tok Pisin. More educated speakers, and/or those where the substrate language(s) have larger phoneme inventories, may have as many as 10 distinct vowels.

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Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d		k g
Fricative	v	s			h
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Lateral Approximant		l
Central Approximant	w	r	j

Where symbols appear in pairs the one to the left represents a voiceless consonant
t, d, and l represent dental/alveolar/post-alveolar consonants, while n is only alveolar
v represents a voiced labio-dental fricative /v/, not a bilabial fricative Template:IPA
r represents (in most Tok Pisin dialects) a tapped or flapped r

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Vowels

The five vowels of Tok Pisin are a, e, i, o, and u.

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Pronunciation Guide

p as in (English) pig
b as in bed
t as in tag
d as in dog
k as in cap
g as in gap
m as in mug
n as in knock
ŋ as in sing
f as in fig
s as in sock
h as in hit
l as in lick
w as in wig
r as in rack
j as in yap
a as in cap
e as in pay
i as in feel
o as in cot
u as in root

All pronunciations are based on RP unless otherwise stated. All vowels are approximate values

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Grammar

The verb has one suffix, -im (from "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) and bin (past) (from "been"). The progressive tense is indicated by the word stap - e.g. "eating" is kaikai stap (or this can be seen as having a "food stop").

The noun does not indicate number, though pronouns do.

Adjectives usually take the suffix -pela (from "fellow") when modifying nouns; an exception is liklik "little". Liklik can also be used as an adverb meaning "slightly", as in dispela bikpela liklik ston, "this slightly big stone".

Pronouns show person, number, and inclusiveness. 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,

	Singular	Dual	Trial	Plural
1st exclusive	mi (I)	mitupela (he/she and I)	mitripela (both of them, and I)	mipela (all of them, and I)
1st inclusive	-	yumitupela (thou and I)	yumitripela (both of you, and I)	yumipela (all of you, and I)
2nd	yu (thou)	yutupela (you two)	yutripela (you three)	yupela (you four or more)
3rd	em (he/she)	tupela (they two)	tripela (they three)	ol (they four or more)

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: bilong (from "belong"), which means "of" or "for", and long, which means everything else. Some phrases are used as prepositions, such as long namel (bilong), "in the middle of".

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Vocabulary

Tok Pisin can sound very colourful in its use of words, which are derived from English (with Australian influences), indigenous Melanesian languages and German (part of the country was under German rule until 1914).

bagarap(im) - broken, to break down (from "bugger up") - very widely used in PNG
balus - airplane
bikpela - big
haus - house
haus tambaran - traditional house, house with artifacts of ancestors or for honoring ancestors; tambaran means "ancestor spirit" or "ghost"
kaikai - food, eat
kamap - arrive, become (from "come up")
kisim - get
mangi - young man (from "monkey")
manmeri - people
meri - woman (from the English name "Mary")
pikinini - child (from Pacific Pidgin English, but ultimately from Portuguese influenced Lingua franca, cf, pickaninny)
Papa God - God
raus(im) - get out (from German "raus")
sapos(im) - if (from "suppose")
save - know (from Pacific Pidgin English, but ultimately from Portuguese influenced Lingua franca, cf. "savvy")
stap(im) - be, stay (from "stop")
slip - sleep, live
tasol - only (from "that's all")