Tok Pisin phrasebook
Tok Pisin (or Pidgin) is spoken in Papua New Guinea, and is closely related to Pijin blong Solomon (Solomon Islands), Bislama (Vanuatu), and Ailan Tok (Torres Strait); these Bislamic languages are descended from a pidgin which formed in the early 1800s. The vocabulary is 5/6 Indo-European (mostly English, some German, Portuguese, and Latin), 1/7 Malayo-Polynesian, and the rest Trans-New-Guinea and other languages. The grammar is creolized and unlike those of the source languages.
Notable features of Tok Pisin include the frequent suffix -pela, which is used to pluralize personal pronouns and mark that an adjective or number is modifying a noun, and the suffix -im, which usually indicates a transitive verb. Many words are reduplicated, which may make a completely different word (sip ship, sipsip sheep), form a derivative (tok word, talk, language, toktok conversation, phrase), or just be part of the word (pukpuk means crocodile, but there is no word puk).
Pronunciation Guide
Phrase listThe forms ending in -pela are used when the number is followed by a noun other than a unit of measurement and is counting that noun, unless the number already has -pela in it.
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Tok Pisin phrasebook" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0