Tok Pisin

## Overview

**Tok Pisin** 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 that 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. While it likely developed as a trade pidgin, Tok Pisin has become a distinct language in its own right. It is often referred to by Anglophones as "**New Guinea Pidgin**" or "Pidgin English".

Between five and six million people use Tok Pisin to some degree, although not all speak it well. Many now learn it as a first language, in particular the children of parents or grandparents who originally spoke different vernaculars (for example, a mother from Madangand 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 vernacular (*tok ples*), or learning a vernacular as a second (or third) language, after Tok Pisin (and possibly English). Perhaps one million people now use Tok Pisin as a primary language. Tok Pisin is "slowly crowding out" other languages of Papua New Guinea.

## Name

*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 almost invariably refer to Tok Pisin as *Pidgin* when speaking English. However, professional linguists prefer to use the term *Tok Pisin,* as this is considered a distinct language in its own right. The language can no longer be considered a pidgin strictly speaking: it is now a first language for numerous people, and is not simply a *lingua franca* to facilitate communication with speakers of other languages.

## Classification

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.

## Tok Pisin excerpt from Wikipedia article "Tok Pisin"

Tok Pisin i stap wanpla tokples na toktok long bung blong Papua Niugini. Em i no tokples blong taim bipo, em i kamap insait long en 150 yia igo pinis. Planti ol hap tok blong Tok Pisin igat as long Tok Inglis, Tok Malay na long sampla ol tokples long Papua Niugini olsem Kuanua kam long Rabaul.

Dispela nem *Tok Pisin* i kam long Tok Inglis *talk* (i minim 'toktok') na *pidgin* (i minim 'toktok ol i yusim wataim namel ol pipol i nogat wankain tokples'). Sampla manmeri i tingting olsem hap tok *pidgin* i kamap long hap tok *business* (i min bisnis) long taim bipo tru.

Tok Pisin em i wanpela tokples blong Gavman blong Papua Niugini (wantaim Tok Inglis na Hiri Motu). Antap long 2 milien manmeri save yusim Tok Pisin insait long Papua Niugini. Ol i yusim Tok Pisin long Haus Palamen, na long lokol gavman, na long sampela ol elementari skul.

Tok Pisin i helpim tru ol lain long Papua Niugini, blong wanem i gat planti tokples long PNG - moa yet long olgeta narapela kantri long wol.

Tok Pisin, Bislama na Pijin kam long wanlain. Bislama i stap wanpla toktok blong Vanuatu, na Tok Pijin blong Solomon Ailans, tasol ol tripela i stap liklik narakain long wanwan narapla. Narapla toktok i klostu Tok Pisin i stap Torres Strait Creole wanem i tokim long Torres Strait, Queensland (Kwinslend), Ostrelia. Tasol em i nogat long klostu olsem Bislama na Pijin poret Tok Pisin.