By Hey Danger! (just in case you don’t know, that’s his name), thanks for the Tok Pisin Wikipedia link, http://tpi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pes_Fran
Okay so had a look through this tok pisin (or PNG pidgin english) Wikipedia initiative and I was quite surprised to see the amount of work that had gone into it. I kind’ve felt a sense of pride that we had some tok pisin on the net, some links are below from that site:
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Long Papua Niugini Papua Niugini - Niugini - Tok Pisin - Hiri Motu |
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Save long Namba na Graun Estronomi - Save long Laip (stadiim ol samting i gat laip longen) - Kemistri - Save long komputa - Save long Graun - Ekolosi - Matematiks - Fisiks |
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Save long Manmeri na Ples Antropolosi - Sosiolosi - Edukesen - Jiograpi - Histori - Lingwistiks na Tokples - Pilosopi - Saikolosi |
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Sosaiti Lo - Ekonomiks - Famili - Environmen na Manesmen - Gavman na Politiks - Bisnis |
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But as I began to read through the site a bit more I found myself getting a little annoyed because of all the phonetic spelling. I speak fluent tok pisin and I must say that I have always thought that tok pisin was a limited language and something that should be slowly phased out of our PNG society. Here are my 2 reasons why:
Point One. Tok Pisin is limited in what you can express, full stop, so you end up stretching your brain as to how you can make a word like ‘Astronomy’ sound basic and simple and you end up with ‘Estronomi’. Just 2 letters changed to create a word which is supposed to explain something as complex as the stars. What is the point? Lets just stick to english! Why? Because through English we are all able to access information from a trillion more sources than tok pisin hence broadening and deepening education. Imagine if all the village kids and teenagers could speak and read in fluent English, imagine the world of possibilities for jobs and education that immediately opens up for them?
Point Two. Tok Pisin as I said should be phased out but definately each PNG’ean should have some basic knowledge of their village langauages. I do not claim to know how to speak my father or mothers village languages fluently, but that is the whole point of why it should be recorded. Because it is these languages that hold that information access but for a world and traditions that we will never ever see again in our lives. If any PNG language wikipedia is to be created than it should be one in ‘Motu’ or ‘Konua’ or for myself on my Dad’s side, (and shame on me too because I’m also guilty) it should be in Arapesh.
The majority of PNG’eans that rely on reading in tok pisin are the exact ones who do not even have access to the internet. So to go as far as creating a tok pisin ‘Pes Fran’ to me is a nice guesture but I guess I don’t believe in it serving a broader educational purpose.
But anyway that’s what I think, I would be very interested to hear what you think or if you disagree with me. Let us know…
7 comments
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March 8, 2007 at 7:58 pm
lorraine
hae im writting all the from nz but im foem png… i went for my chrismas holz in decemba and i just love ur songs esspecially everywhere…………..!!!!!!
and yer just writting to sae u guys r soooooooooo awsme
March 11, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Emmanuel
Hi Lorraine, I think your comments should have been posted here, http://masalai.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/interview-with-ak47-of-the-massive-sound-system
April 2, 2007 at 2:32 am
My Arapesh language « the Masalai blog
[...] briefly mentioned in a past posting about my father’s village language which is called Arapesh. My village is called Wautogik and [...]
April 15, 2007 at 8:48 am
Lita
I somewhat agree with you Emmanuel. I don’t think tok pisin should be completely phased out in out in verbal communications yet ( maybe in the very very long run when access to education and so forth have been greatly improved) but I do think it should not be taught in schools ( as currently done in some primary schools- which only makes learning English later harder as the children are older) or further developed. English is already an ‘exclusive’ language that few people speak fluently in PNG so the more the very accessible tok pisin is developed into a complex creole the more likely people will naturally progress to read and write in it before they do in English. It could then become embedded in our school systems (which is already starting to happen) and become adopted in work places. This only serves to further harm PNG’s development as high English literacy rates, and highly developed levels of understanding of English are essential for any developing/least developed nation to progress and compete in the world
Also, I’ve begun realising/discovering of late that my maternal traditional language is way more expressive then tok pisin. It has equivalents in English and vice versa where none can be found in pidgin. Unfortunately people like me only understand the basics of my traditional language and the more expressive terms and structures are being lost.
April 15, 2007 at 8:53 am
Lita
By the way, great blog! I’m glad to have come across it.
April 15, 2007 at 11:47 am
Emmanuel
Thanks Lita for your comments and kind words. I too have trouble with my languages but hopefully as pointed out by my post on the digital recording of my fathers language maybe I can begin to learn more about it as well. Like how you described your mothers language my fathers is just as complex and expressive.
April 23, 2007 at 6:02 am
Badira
Hi guys just something with lingos, I came across the Summer Institute of Linguistics website (http://www.sil.org/pacific/png/index.asp) was just browsing around and to my suprise I found a full dictionary of my language, its sinaugoro language in Rigo District…I was totally suprised, download the whole 200page, poured a cuppa and just read through it from A-Z, it was very impressive. You can check, you might find your dictionary with them.