Hello! It’s been a few days in coming but now that Easter (and the inevitable backlog of work that involves) is out of the way, we’re happy to present, at last, our Five Fun Facts about the languages of Papua New Guinea!
1) More than 850 languages are used within the 462,840 km2 that make up the country of Papua New Guinea. This makes Papua New Guinea the most linguistically diverse country on the planet. Of these 850, the country has three official languages: English, Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin.
2) Tok Pisin is a creole language which serves as Papua New Guinea’s lingua franca. Originally developed as a trade pidgin, and often referred to as ‘New Guinea Pidgin’ or just plain ‘Pidgin English’, Tok Pisin is now in fact a language in its own right, used by 5 to 6 million people. Tok Pisin combines words and influences from English, German and indigenous Melanesian languages. For example:
- bagarap(im) – broken, to break down (from "bugger up")
- gut - good
- hamamas / amamas – happy
- haus – house or building
- hausboi/hausmeri – a male/female domestic servant
- haus moni – bank (from "house money")
- haus sik – hospital (from "house sick")
- pisin – bird (from "pigeon")
Prince Charles spoke Tok Pisin to a local audience when he visted Papua New Guinea in 2012 as part of the Diamond Jubilee tour of the Pacific
3) Hiri Motu is a simplified version of the Austronesian language Motu, although due to the phonological and grammatical differences, Hiri Motu speakers cannot understand Motu. Originally developed among the participants of the Hiri trade cycle between the Motu people and their neighbours on the southeast coast of New Guinea, Hiri Motu reached its widest use in the 1960s. However, it has since declined as more people turn to English and Tok Pisin.
A Hiri Motu speaking headhunter of Papua New Guinea
4) The longest established languages of Papua New Guinea are called the Papuan languages, which are also spoken in parts of Indonesia, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Most Papuan languages are only spoken by a few hundreds to thousands of people, although a few in the New Guinea highlands exceed a hundred thousand. These include Western Dani (180,000), Ekari (100,000), Enga (230,000), Huli (150,000) and Melpa (130,000). Although these languages have been little studied, three preliminary investigations suggest that the largest language family is the Trans-New Guinea phylum, consisting of the majority of Papuan languages and running mainly along the highlands of New Guinea. The various high-level language families may represent distinct migrations into New Guinea, presumably from the west.
5) People speaking languages of the Austronesian family are believed to have arrived in New Guinea around 3,500 years ago. These languages are spread widely across the globe, from Madagscar in the West to Easter Island in the East, and as far north as the Formosan Islands of Taiwan. Austronesian is on a par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo and Afroasiatic as one of the best-established ancient language families.
Austronesian languages across the globe
Come back next Thursday for five fun facts about another Austronesian language, Fijian!
Andrew Wardell
Editorial Assistant | Linguistics
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