hello everyone welcome to the langfocus
channel and my name is paul
today we're going to talk about a
language that partially descended from
english
but is not actually english the language
is
tok pisin an english-based creole
language
sometimes referred to as pidgin or
pidgin english
tok pisin is one of the official
languages of papua new guinea which is
located in the southwestern pacific
ocean
just north of australia its other
official languages are english
which is not spoken by most of the
population and hirimotu
but talk pisin serves as the most common
lingua franca
and a lingua franca is certainly useful
in papua new guinea because it's the
most linguistically diverse country on
the planet
okay it's the most linguistically
diverse country in the whole universe
over 800 languages are spoken in papua
new guinea a country of just around
8 million people with so much linguistic
diversity
talk piecing is frequently used for
communication between people of
different linguistic backgrounds
look at the name of the language tok
pisin tok means
language but it comes from the english
word talk it also means talk
speech word message news etc the
majority of talk pissing words come from
english
but are used with different meanings or
with a wider range of meanings
this word pisin comes from pidgin but
probably developed from the english word
business not in talk piecing but rather
in a chinese language
tok pisin has also sometimes been called
talk boy
boy comes from boy but actually refers
to someone who was an indentured laborer
servant or slave of colonial europeans
because their bosses or
masters referred to them as boy talk
pissing began as a pidgin language on
the plantations of german samoa between
1880 and 1914
when laborers from new guinea were
brought over an
english-based creole in a german
territory why
well labourers from the solomon islands
and from vanuatu had already been
working on plantations in the queensland
colony in present-day australia
and they had already developed an
english-based pigeon language
in short they needed a common language
for work so they adopted a small english
vocabulary
and use the grammar of their melanesian
languages to connect the words together
in this way a melanesian english-based
pigeon language arose in queensland
some of these pigeon speakers from
vanuatu and solomon islands later worked
in german samoa alongside the new
guinean laborers
using their pigeon as a lingua franca
people from all of these places
brought the pidgin language home with
them where it became widely used as a
lingua franca
and became creolized meaning that it
became spoken as a native language
by some and became used for all aspects
of life
not only for the limited functions of
the pidgin language
till this day the forms of pidgins
spoken in papua new guinea the solomon
islands and vanuatu
are all quite similar though they have
definitely diverged into their own
distinct varieties
after pidgin languages become creole
languages they are technically no longer
pidgin languages but they are still
referred to as pidgin in all three
countries
now let's examine tok pisin and see what
it's like
vocabulary as an english-based creole
language
talk piecing got most of its vocabulary
from english
but words of english origin are usually
pronounced quite differently
following phonological rules inherited
from austronesian languages of melanesia
for example brother is pronounced
before shark
shack stand or stand up
sun up words of english origin
are also generally used differently than
they are in english
for example plus from the english word
place
in talk pisin this means village or
hometown area or region
from the english word devil means soul
shadow
reflection or image close to from
english
close to means close to but also nearly
or
almost christmas from the english word
christmas
this means christmas but in tok pisin
your age is also measured in the number
of christmases you have been alive for
for example you got hamas christmas this
means how old are you
and me got 10 christmas this means i'm
10 years old
since talk piecing vocabulary stems from
a small english vocabulary
often times one simple word is used to
cover a whole set of synonyms in english
or a category of items for example got
from english got or have got this means
to have or to possess
in tok pisin there's just this one word
colos
from english clothes this means clothes
but also
blouse or dress cross this means
angry or annoyed or cross in english
cross means mildly annoyed and many
north americans might be unfamiliar with
that word
but in talk pissing it's the common word
for all degrees of anger or annoyance
from english too much this means very or
very much
or greatly or too much
and some words have expanded beyond
synonyms to cover a wider range of
meanings
stop from english stop this means to be
located somewhere
to remain to stay to rest or
to be in progress with this word it
might be a bit harder to wrap your head
around its different meanings
if you stop somewhere then you are there
at that place
you are remaining there you are staying
there you are situated there
the meaning of to be in progress stems
from the meaning of remaining
because the action is remaining in
progress for example
pen belong me stop long one m hop
this means where is my pen pen of me is
located
at what place
not all talk piecing vocabulary comes
from english some words come from german
since samoa was under german control and
parts of new guinea were under german
control when new guineans returned
well sim this means to remove or to get
rid of this comes from german
house meaning out gumi
this means rubber and comes from the
german word gummy
musky this means it doesn't matter and
comes from the german
mahdit which means the same thing some
vocabulary comes from malay because of
contact with bahasa indonesia on the
island of new guinea and
contact with regional malay languages
meaning milk this comes from the malay
word susu
some words also come from portuguese
because of early portuguese contact with
melanesia as early as the 16th century
for example this means to know
to understand to know how to to be able
to
to be cognizant with or to be accustomed
to
this comes from portuguese saber which
means to know
which means child or baby comes from
portuguese
pekinino which means little and there
are also words from many austronesian
languages
grammar while the vocabulary of talk
picin mainly comes from english
the grammar largely reflects the
austronesian languages spoken by early
pigeon speakers on the plantations
let's look at a few examples here and
later we'll see more grammatical
features in context
the predicate marker all third person
sentences contain a predicate marker
e plus inogat
the village doesn't have any water word
for word this sentence is
village predicate marker no have water
the word e tells us that what comes next
is the predicate
the part of the sentence telling us
something about the subject and normally
contains a verb
in a language with simple vocabulary and
grammar it would be easy to hear the
predicate as part of the subject if
there were no predicate marker
placenogat whata could be understood as
the village that doesn't have any water
which would leave the listener waiting
for a predicate to follow
because that whole phrase sounds like
the subject
next the transitive verb marker im
when verbs are transitive in other words
when they are followed by an object the
suffix im
is attached
this means i really like beer i like
really beer like him consists of like
from english like with the transitive
suffix
this means yesterday i saw you on the
street yesterday i
see you on street lukim consists of look
from english look with the transitive
suffix im
this sentence also contains an
interesting word long
which brings me to the next point
prepositions tokpisin basically has two
main prepositions
one of them is long which comes from
english along
it's used to cover a wide range of
english prepositions in
by on with from to and at
have a look at this example
this means they went by road on monday
to lay
they preposition marker go by road
on monday to lay that's the name of a
city
the word ol comes from english all but
one of its uses
is the third person plural pronoun the
other
main preposition is belong which comes
from english belong
it covers the meanings of and for and is
often used to indicate possession
for example dispeller emica bilombrata
belong me
this is my brother's car this it
predicate marker
car of brother of me
next the adjective marker pela the
suffix pela
is normally added to single syllable
adjectives when they appear before nouns
so a big tree is big bella d y
bic comes from english big and then the
adjective suffix is attached to it
d y is a word from one of talk piecing's
austronesian substratum languages
it's also worth pointing out that this
phrase has no indefinite article
tok pisin has no definite article and no
indefinite article
in other words no equivalent of the or
ah but for clarity
one pella meaning one can be used so
this phrase could be
one pillar big pillar diy one big tree
notice that one pellet comes from the
english word one with the adjective
suffix attached to it
okay we've seen some of its key features
so now let's look at a couple more talk
piecing sentences
and break them down suppose mipla no got
enough money long bomb house mipela
can walk in house to seoul this means if
we don't have enough money to buy a
house we can just build a house
word for word it's if we know have
enough money
to buy house we can build house just
suppose comes from english suppose and
is used to mean
if mipella comes from english me which
on its own would mean i
but the suffix pella indicates that it's
the plural form
we belong is used here to mean for
baim comes from english by and has the
transitive verb suffix
wokim comes from english work but means
to make
build or repair tasol means just or only
and comes from english
that's all and one more example
maybe spark no go through long sing sing
this means he got really drunk at the
party or
she got really drunk at the party he or
she predicate marker
past tense marker be drunk badly really
at party m comes from english him
but is used for both male and female and
for subjects and objects in toc piscine
bin comes from english bin and is used
as an aspect marker to show completion
of an
action effectively indicating past tense
in this sentence
spock comes from english spark and means
to be drunk nogut
comes from english no good true comes
from english true
and is used as an adjective or as an
adverb like truly or really
long refers to the location of the
action and sing sing
is a reduplication of the english word
sing and is used to mean sing
or song but also for a ceremony
involving dancing and singing
or for a party let's think about bean
again for a minute
talk pisin verbs are basically not
conjugated and the verb form is the same
for all persons and numbers
and times to indicate time you can use a
time word like
asde meaning yesterday tomorrow etc
or you can use an auxiliary verb that
shows aspect like bin
which shows completion another option is
to place
pinis from english finnish after the
verb
for the future you can use like which
has the sense of is about to
for things a little farther in the
future you can use the word by
or by by for example by me come back
i shall return by and bye bye come from
the old-fashioned english expression
by and by meaning after a short time
these words indicating an action's
relation to time are not normally
necessary
if the time is clear from the context
and the adverbs of the sentence
hopefully this video and the language
samples within it have given you a sense
of what toc piecing is like
the english roots of much of its
vocabulary are obvious
but it's also quite obvious that
tocpisin is not english
its grammar is very different and even
its english-based vocabulary is used
quite differently
tokpisin is a language in its own right
it's used in the parliament
of papua new guinea in tv and radio
broadcasts and it's used every day as a
lingua franca throughout the country
though there are books written in talk
piecing it's currently not used much as
a literary language though some people
think that it can and should fulfill
that role as well but with english also
being an official language and the
language of schooling
other people think that english alone
should remain the formal and literary
language
the question of the day to native
speakers of tonkin
for some people it's hard to imagine how
talk piecing's vocabulary is sufficient
for all parts of life
do you find that talk pissing is
sufficient to say everything you want to
say
are there times when it's not and for
other people if you want to hear some
more talk piecing i will put a link
to a talk pc news broadcast in the
description below
listen to that clip and let us know in
the comments what you think
can you understand any of it does it
sound like english
if you enjoyed this video be sure to
check out lang focus on the various
social media platforms like facebook
youtube instagram and twitter and once
again i want to say a special thanks to
all of my patreon supporters
especially these ones right here on the
screen they are my top tier patreon
supporters
many extra special thanks to them and to
everyone
thank you for watching and have a nice
[Music]
day
[Music]
you