page_title: Tok Pisin
section_title: Name
hierarchical_section_title: Tok Pisin / Name
caption_attribution_description: English: Dictionary and Grammar of Melanesian Pidgin
context_page_description: Tok Pisin, often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply "Pidgin", is a 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 Western, Gulf, Central, Oro Province and Milne Bay Provinces, 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. 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, or learning a local language as a second language, after Tok Pisin. Perhaps one million people now use Tok Pisin as a primary language. Tok Pisin is "slowly crowding out" other languages of Papua New Guinea.
context_section_description: Tok is derived from English "talk", but has a wider application, also meaning "word", "speech", or "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" in English.  Papua New Guinean anglophones often refer to Tok Pisin as "Pidgin" when speaking English. This usage of "Pidgin" as an alternative name of the language differs from the term "pidgin" as used by professional linguists. 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 more correctly called a creole.
caption: A 1971 reference book on Tok Pisin (referring to the language as Melanesian Pidgin).
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