Tok Pisin
Spoken in	Papua New Guinea
Number of speakers	~ 2 million, of which 500 000 Native
Classification by family
- Pidgins and Creoles - Creole languages - English-based creole (in) - Tok Pisin
Official status
Official language of	Papua New Guinea
Language codes
ISO 639-2	tpi
ISO 639-3	tpi
IETF	tpi
change

Tok Pisin, or is a Creole -based vocabulary that English has about two million speakers, of which about 500,000 natives. It is very close Bislama of Vanuatu and Pijin of Solomon Islands.

The word comes from Tok Tok Pisin, meaning "word" English), and meaning " pidgin "(the word itself came from English This is one of the official languages of Papua New Guinea Main grammatical features

The grammar of Tok Pisin has points in common with the other grammar type pidgin and Creole, but it also presents remarkable features, including some here. For most verbs , a suffix ,-im indicates the transitivity. Thus, kamap (English come up) means "to happen, happen," while kamapim (presumably derived from English HIM come up) means "create, cause, cause (something)."

When they are preposed, many adjectives have about them a suffix-pela (from probably from English fellow). For example, wanpela meri yangpela means "a young woman," or: narapela bikpela haus, "another big building."

The time is indicated by particles : bay (from the by and by) the future, bin (from beens) or Pinisis (from finish) for the past. Time is rarely pronounced if the context allows us to understand clearly when the action takes place.

The names and adjectives do not mark the plural , but this may be indicated by pronouns or by the plural marker ol.

The system of pronouns indicates the person , the number , and the pronoun we, the inclusion or exclusion (that is to say that the speaker is included or not in this "we").

	1st pers. Exclusive	1st pers. inclusive	2nd pers.	3 pers.
Singular	mi I	-	yu you	em him, she
Duel	mitupela me and him (or her)	yumitupela you and me	yutupela you two	tupela Between them
Plural	MIPEL Me and them	yumi you guys and me	yupela you guys	ol them (or them)

The repetitions are frequent. They may have several functions:

• indicate the plural: kainkain "different kinds";
• mark an intensive , an iterative : Toktok "speech, debate, language";
• avoid disambiguation : sip "boat" ~ sipsip "sheep", etc..

There are only three prepositions of its own: wantaim, rarely used, which means "with" Bilong for the possession or the recipient ("de", "for"), and long, which expresses all the rest. Nevertheless, many prepositions derived the last two are built in the form of phrases such as long or NAMEL Bilong NAMEL long, "amid" antap long, "on", pineapples along, "under, down, etc..

Glossary

The lexicon of Tok Pisin is made for 5 / 6 English and the rest of terms Melanesian , Portuguese and German. Indeed, the northern part of Papua New Guinea has been under the German government until 1919. Here are some examples of words:

• bagarap, "break down" (in English bugger up);
• Balus, "airplane" (a local word meaning pigeon);
• kisim, "receive, take (catch HIM in English, or maybe kiss HIM);
• meri, "woman" (Mary in English, or perhaps a Melanesian word);
• pikinini, "child" (Portuguese pequeninho 'small');
• rausim, "throw, move, delete" (from German raus + suffix-im);
• SAPOS "if" (the English presumably);
• save, "knowledge power" (Portuguese saber).

Many words are formed by lexical composition :

• mausgras "beard, mustache" (mouth of + grass);
• pikinini i dring susu yet, "baby" (literally "a child who still head").

The language of cities and media, however, is increasingly marked by the English. For example, here is a phrase heard on Radio Australia: "Mr. Bush IBIN tokaut you ol long wok bung Bilong despela tupela Kantra Bilong pait na controllim agensim Terrorism Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction" (the underlined portion is a mixture of Tok Pisin and English).

Spelling is fluctuating and dialect variations are important, the same word can be pronounced and written in several different ways. For example:

• "De": Bilong, blong, blo;
• "Later": bay, baimbai, baembae, etc.. ;
• "Help": halivim, halvim, Helvim, helpim, etc..

However, these variations do not pose great difficulty understanding.

See also

Bibliography

• Francis Mihalic, The Jacaranda Dictionary and Grammar of Melanesian Pidgin, Milton, Queensland, The Jacaranda Press, 1971
• John J. Murphy, The Book of pidgin English, Bathurst, New South Wales, Robert Brown, 6th edition, 1985
• Geoff P. Smith, Growing Up With Tok Pisin: Contact, creolization, and Change in Papua New Guinea's National Language, London, Battlebridge Publications, 2002, ISBN 1-903292-06-9
• Tom Dutton, Thomas Dicks, A New Course in Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin), Canberra: Australian National University, 1985, ISBN 0-85883-341-7
• SA Wurm, P. Mhlhusler (eds), Handbook of Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin), Canberra: Australian National University, 1985, ISBN 0-85883-321-2.

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