- Also spoken in
- Papua New Guinea
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Tok Pisin is spoken across Papua New Guinea. One academic description of the language states that it took over the functions of virtually all of the territory's other lingue franche and, for many speakers, the function of their original first language as well, yet it was never given the formal status of an official language: the German and then Australian colonial administrations instead used their own languages, German and then English, as the territory's official languages. The same source describes Tok Pisin as the country's unofficial national language, one that expanded over the course of its history from a trade and plantation language into a language used in government administration and parliament and, for a growing number of speakers, a first language. Papua New Guinea's constitution does not name an official language, but among its National Goals it directs all people and government bodies to work toward universal literacy in Pisin, Hiri Motu, or English, alongside people's own local vernacular language.
Sources
- "Papua New Guinea 1975 (rev. 2016) Constitution" (Constitute Project) — National Goals and Directive Principles, National Goal 2 ("Equality and Participation"), clause 11
- Wurm, S.A.; Mühlhäusler, P. (1985). "Introduction." In Wurm, S.A. & Mühlhäusler, P. (eds.), Handbook of Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin). Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University — pp.3-4, 8 (§1.1.1, §1.1.4-1.1.6)
Script & pronunciation
Tok Pisin is written in the Latin alphabet. Documented ways of writing it appeared from Tok Pisin's earliest years in what is now Papua New Guinea, but for decades rival missions each created their own spelling systems with no coordination among them, so that by the middle of the twentieth century as many as nine major systems were in use, with news media and government departments adding further variation. The territorial administration then began working toward a single standardized orthography, and a Tok Pisin grammar and dictionary using it were published soon after, though other missions and agencies continued to use their own spelling systems. Later in the twentieth century, a Tok Pisin Orthography Committee brought together government departments, university professors, translators, and members of the territory's House of Assembly, and unanimously recognized the spelling used in the Tok Pisin translation of the New Testament as the norm to be used throughout the language; official government adoption of this standard is described as still lacking, but it has continued to spread through publications with wide circulation, such as the weekly newspaper Wantok. This app's Tok Pisin cards write greeting words such as Gude ("Hello / Good day") and Monin ("Good morning") with ordinary Latin letters and no diacritics.
Sources
Grammar essentials
Tok Pisin's basic sentence patterns place the subject before the verb and the object after it, as in the pattern noun phrase + i + transitive verb + noun phrase. The element i, called the predicate marker, generally appears immediately before the main verb or other predicate when the subject is a third-person noun phrase, but it is often left out of statements and questions where the subject is the singular pronoun mi ("I") or yu ("you") directly before the predicate. This app's card Ki bilong mi i bruk ("My lock is broken") shows i before the predicate bruk ("broken") with a third-person subject, and Rum bilong mi i gat wota? ("Does my room have water?") shows the same i before the verb gat ("have") with the third-person subject Rum bilong mi ("my room"). By contrast, this app's card Mi no save ("I don't understand") has no i, matching the pattern for a first-person singular subject placed directly before the predicate. The negative particle no is placed directly before the verb, immediately after i when i is present; in Mi no save, where i is absent because the subject is the first-person singular pronoun mi, no sits directly before the verb save ("know"). Possession is expressed with the preposition bilong placed after the noun it belongs to, as in Rum bilong mi ("my room"), from the same card cited above. Many Tok Pisin transitive verbs take the suffix -im, as in this app's card Helpim mi! ("Help me!"), whose own grammar note likewise identifies -im as a transitive marker.
Sources
- Mühlhäusler, P. (1985). "Syntax of Tok Pisin." In Wurm, S.A. & Mühlhäusler, P. (eds.), Handbook of Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin). Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University — pp.358, 367, 373-375 (§4.4.1.4.2, §4.4.1.8, §4.4.2.2-4.4.2.4.1)
Politeness & etiquette
Tok Pisin includes the word plis, borrowed directly from English "please," which appears in requests much as its English source does. One example given in an academic description of Tok Pisin syntax is Yupela papamama plis traim na larim em i ken i stap long skul ("You parents must please try and let her stay at school"), where plis accompanies a request addressed to the parents. This app's cards use plis the same way, on its own as Plis ("Please") and combined with a transitive verb ending in -im, as in Plis helpim mi ("Please help me").