Pidgin talk

Definitions

A pidgin is a new language which develops in situations where speakers of different languages need to communicate but don't share a common language. This new language will initially have a limited vocabulary and grammatical structure.

When children start learning a pidgin as their first language and this becomes the native language of a community, it is called a creole. A creole, like a pidgin, is a distinct language which has taken most of its vocabulary from another language but has developed its own unique grammatical rules.

History

Pidgins and creoles come about as a result of many influences. In most cases, groups of people who speak different languages have been forced together by various factors which can include migration, immigration and slavery.

Tok Pisin (literally 'talk pidgin') spoken in Papua New Guinea, for example, arose due to Melanesians being recruited as plantation workers in Australia in the 19th century. The very basic English they picked up was what they used to communicate with each other. Over time, their language began to stabilise in form and function and a pidgin language developed.

When the labourers finally returned home, to islands which had no lingua franca, they took their developing language with them. The pidgin was then used by the locals and took on the influence of local indigenous languages.

When the use of Tok Pisin began to spread, it started to acquire more vocabulary and more grammatical rules. Papua New Guinea gained full independence in 1975 and the constitution recognises Tok Pisin as one of the national languages of the country. Although English is more widely used for government business, much of the debate in Parliament is in Tok Pisin and it is used in the media.

Tok Pisin is today the lingua franca of the whole of Papua New Guinea and is spoken by an estimated three quarters of the country's four million inhabitants.

Grammar

Tok Pisin is not simplified English but is a separate language with its own very particular grammatical rules.

Some vocabulary revealing the English origins:

solwara - ocean (from "salt water")

stap - be, stay (from "stop")

slip - sleep, live

tasol - only (from "that's all")

Some basic sentences showing the use of grammar:

Ben i bin wok asde. 'Ben worked yesterday.'

Ben bai i wok tumora. 'Ben will work tomorrow.'

Ben i wok i stap nau. 'Ben is working now.'

Ben i wok pinis. 'Ben is finished working.'

Ben i ken wok. 'Ben can work (he is allowed to).'

Ben inap wok. 'Ben can work (he has the ability).'

Other examples of creoles

Hawai'i Creole English, locally known as "Pidgin", is spoken by at least 600,000 people in the US state.

Kamtok(Cameroon Pidgin) is spoken by over 2 million people in the West African country of Cameroon.

Krio is a creole spoken in Sierra Leone. It is also learned as a second language and widely used as a lingua franca throughout Sierra Leone and in neighbouring countries.

Papiamentu is a creole language which is a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English and French and is spoken by about 200,000 people on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, though each island has a slightly different dialect. Alongside Dutch, Papiamentu is the official language on all three islands and is used as the language of daily life: in homes, on TV and radio, in newspapers, literature, churches and, to a limited extent, in schools.

Trinidad French Creole is spoken on the island of Trinidad in the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago.