Talk:Hiri Motu

message: The following sentence seem to be causing confusion and probably needs recasting:
The dialect names refer to the first languages spoken by users of this lingua franca.
To clarify the situation - Hiri Motu was spoken by people speaking (as a first language) a number a different languages and dialects. Of course this was the whole point. People whose own "village" languages were mutually quite unintelligible were able to communicate using Hiri Motu. 
Now Hiri Motu speakers fell into two broad categories, based on their "original" or "first" languages. 
One group spoke the original ("pure") language (Motu) or one of a number of quite closely related languages (for instance Waima, Mekeo, Roro etc). To a lesser extent, this group also included many speakers who had as their mother tongue another Austronesian language less closely related to Motu, but still having many words, basic constructions etc. in common. This group spoke what was usually called "Central" Hiri Motu (or the "Austronesian" dialect, as we call it here). The vocabulary included a larger percentage of the words of the original language, and the grammar was also a lot closer to "pure" Motu (although some parts of it were still radically simplified).
The other group of speakers spoke a very motley collection of first languages, few of them related in anyway to the Austronesian family, and many of them in no way related to each other either. Calling these languages "Papuan" is a convenience, apart from occurring nowhere else but New Guinea they have little in common, and they certainly don't form a single "family" of related languages. Austronesian languages, on the other hand, are found from Easter Island to Madagascar and many points between. Mastering an Austronesian language (even a simplified one like Hiri Motu) is naturally more difficult if you don't already speak one, and unsurprisingly even quite fluent "Papuan" language speakers tended to use an even more "pidginised" or simplified form of Motu. Their vocabulary tended to be much more limited, and the grammar even simpler than the Austronesian dialect.
Now the sentence in question attempts to summarise all THAT in 15 words - and unsurprisingly fails. Anyone like to have a go at writing a (probably rather longer) sentence or group of sentences that covers the facts succinctly, but in a more comprehensive way? --Soundofmusicals (talk) 09:41, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dialects 

message: There is a custom in PNG to use a language (any language) that will conceal the content of a conversation from someone present whom you want to exclude. A sort of "anti-lingua franca" if you like. Educated people may for instance talk in English to exclude an uneducated person from their conversation, people from a particular tribal area may use their own local tokples for exactly the same purpose. Pidgin (or, nowadays much less frequently, Motu) may well be used to conceal what is said from Europeans or other foreigners.
While there might occasionally be a legitimate reason for this (say, the person you are trying to deceive is a "rascol" trying to mug you) it is usually considered very bad manners, in fact in polite conversation one may even use a language in which one is not particularly fluent in preference to one's first or second language - so that everyone present can understand what you have to say. For instance an educated person may use Pidgin or Motu to a European (when they both would be much more comfortable using English) if there are people present who speak little or no English that they want to include in the conversation, or even just to avoid the impression that they are being knowingly rude. We might even say, "Let's talk in Pidgin (or English, or Motu, or Kiriwina) so that Mr. X. can understand" - or repeat one's self in the other language for the benefit of the "other person".
In Pidgin a language used to conceal what is said from some of the hearers is called a Tokhaid. I'm not sure that I could give an exact English equivalent of this - "secret language" might come close. In Motu you'd probably call it gado idauna or something like that - although there's not a specific term (that I am familiar with, anyway).
All this is basically to help explain why I am reverting a recent well-intentioned (and no doubt factual) edit - it is not only uncited, but it gives an unintended (and quite false) impression that this is a feature of Hiri Motu in particular, or that it occured in the instance mentioned and not otherwise.   --Soundofmusicals (talk) 21:17, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Secret language" 

message: :
I'm guessing Tok Pisin? —Tamfang (talk) 20:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  which pidgin 

message: :
Should one of these be "precedes"?  If not, the sentence could be shorter. —Tamfang (talk) 17:15, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  before and after