From pidgin to creole: The South Seas

A. In the late 1700s, when the English colonized Australia, they traded with Aboriginals there in a pidgin English. They continued using this pidgin as they extended their business to Oceania, using Melanesians in whaling and collecting sandalwood and sea cucumbers.

B. This South Seas pidgin was typical of what we saw earlier: small vocabulary, elementary grammar. Here is an early sample:

South Seas Pidgin, 1835:

No! We all ‘e same a’ you! Suppose one got money, all got money. You—suppose one got money—lock him up in chest. No good! Kanaka all ‘e same ‘a one.

C. The English then established plantations in Queensland and elsewhere and brought men from Papua New Guinea and several islands in Oceania to work them on long-term contracts. Because the workers spoke several different languages, the South Seas Pidgin served as a lingua franca, now used daily for years. In addition, the men often continued using the pidgin when they went home, because so many languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea and on many Oceanic islands. Gradually, the pidgin was expanded into a real language.

D. One branch of this language is Tok Pisin, spoken today in Papua New Guinea alongside the hundreds of indigenous languages there.

1. In South Seas Pidgin, tense was largely left to context, as in this sentence:

South Seas Pidgin:

You plenty lie. You ‘fraid me se-teal. Me no se-teal, me come worship. What for you look me se-teal?

2. But Tok Pisin, as a creole and therefore a full language, has the same kind of equipment for setting sentences in time as older languages, as we see here:

Tok Pisin:

She goes to market.                            Em i go long maket.

She goes to market (regularly).            Em i save go long maket.

She is going to market.                        Em i go long maket i stap.

She has gone to market.                      Em i go long maket pinis.

She went to market.                            Em i bin go long maket.

She will go to market.                          Em bai go long maket.

3. Tok Pisin also has a nuanced vocabulary. Hevi began meaning “heavy,” but it has evolved semantically into also meaning “difficulty” and is used in idioms to mean sadness, as in Bel bilong mi i hevi, “I am sad.”

4. This, then, is a real language. Tok Pisin is used in the Papua New Guinea government and in newspapers. One can speak it badly or even decently but not well.