Pidgin Is Discovered

Yellow-Press Philologist Creates Horrors in New Guinea

By Judy Tudor

“IJEN pig, him catchee pups.” That’s ll Pidgin for “The sow has given birth to a litter of pigs.”

If Territorians don’t believe it, they should read a recent article by an Ameri can writer in “Asia.”

This writer states further: “In another corner of the crazy-quilt Pacific battle front, woolly-headed Sepik River tribes men warned GHQ of the existence of a suspicious clearing in the bush: ‘Too muchee one day walk-along him fella station,’ they jabbered excitedly. ‘Look see garden b’long engine b’long fly.’

Aussies in New Guinea use this language in their palaver with native carriers.”

Well, now, Mr. American Writer, we do not! Gripes, buddy, give us a go!

Personally, I don’t understand the “Too muchee one day walk-along,” etc., at all.

Doubtless, that is a language reserved exclusively for Sepik tribesmen and the writer —but I gather from the second half of the tribesmen’s speech (or jabber) that they thought they had found a place where a Jap plane could sit down.

HERE is more “news” from the same source.

"Pidgin was elevated to a new dignity a few years ago, when it was declared the official language of New Guinea.” (Was it?) “Previously English, Dutch, Chinese, German, French, Japanese. Malay and Korean had competed with half a dozen different native languages in this island Tower of Babel.” (Didn’t know that, either!) “Within six months of the adoption of it as an official language, Australian administration problems were simplified.” (Who told you that one, big boy?) Pidgin itself, the writer tells us, is a Cantonese corruption of the word “busi ness.” Maybe he is right at that—but I find it hard to believe that “engine” denotes everything from a can-opener to a steam-shovel, even allowing for Pid gin’s basic economy of words. What about “ope-tin” or “ope-bottle”?

I wouldn’t know about the steam shovel. None of my friends in New Guinea owned one. We mined in a very small way—just with boxes and sluice pumps.

Nor can I accept the funny one about tinned meat being called “Bullamacow” because the first beef that Samoans saw was on the hoof. Why Samoans? And when did they being to speak Pidgin?

“Bullamacow,” in New Guinea, is a term reserved exclusively for cattle —on the hoof. Canned meat is simply “arbus” or “tin-meat.”

Pidgin is the Esperanto of the Pacific, but the writer in “Asia” is a little too sweeping in his application of one breed of it to the whole vast area. No Canton merchant could, as he suggests, make himself understood by a retired Sepik head-hunter if his language actually consisted of a string of “muchees” and “catchees” and “top-sides” and “wash ees.” No New Guinea native would know that “you two piecee-fella” meant “you.”

Nor would he know that “bimeby” expressed the future nor “long time hap pen” the past. He would say “behind,” for the future, and “before,” for the past.

BUT to the lay mind all this is mere quibble. All Pidgin—the South-west Pacific variety or any other—is a

childish gibberish, without rules or reason, that lends itself readily to impro visation.

To the resident of those SW Pacific Territories who use Pidgin, Pidgin is no joke. It is part of his equipment, as essential as a sluice-box to a miner, a licence to a recruiter or coconuts to a planter. It is in very fact an estab lished tongue, with all the rules of one.

It is no use making up something as you go along. It does not work—nor pay.

The native has met us half way in giving up his own tongue for the use of Pidgin; but if you do not go the other half your self, and speak it according to its rules, you are met with a face that is. as blankly expressionless as a piece of brown dough. A person who does not, in the kanaka’s estimation, “savvy the talk,’’ is an easy mark for the wily savage, and the “master’s” path will be a thorny one.

It takes months to gain a working knowledge of this language. The diffi culties are considerably increased by the fact that in practice, natives and Euro peans speak with two distinct accents. It is usually found that the native becomes used to your accent before you become used to his—therefore you are capable of giving orders before you are learned enough to accept explanations.

Real fluency comes only when you think as naturally in Pidgin as you do in straight English. Spoken by someone

who knows what he is about, Pidgin is not the stuff that jokes are made of— it is a concise, picturesque pattern of words, each one of which stands out in a bas-relief of telling meaning, and into which profanity is blended so skilfully that it can be used with aplomb by the most pure-tongued person.

SEVERAL hops ahead of the fluent lin guists, are the Pidgin writers. Writ ten Pidgin—at least by the several New Guinea missionary bodies who spe cialised in printing bibles, prayer books, hymn books, etc.—bears little earthly resemblance to the spoken word. Euro pean characters are used, but in a system of phonetic spelling known only to the mission body concerned, and the result looks like something that might have been devised by Kernel Ataturk at the height of his language reform.

The Lutheran Mission’s rendition of the Lord’s Prayer is written as follows, and presents a conundrum of the first magnitude, and an example of some of the problems of the native, as opposed to European, Pidgin:—

“Papa Belon Mifela

“Papa belon mifela ju i stap antap . , Probably this is close enough to native pronunciation: a European would say the

same thing as “Poppa belong me fella you ’e stop on top.” Both would mean, “Our Father which art in Heaven . . . ”

To the non-missionary, the main body of the prayer, which tries to turn the purely biblical terms and allusions into something that the native might possibly understand, is totally incomprehensible.

The conclusion, “Kindom em belong ju tasol, ju strong fela, ju gat nem oltaim.

Tru!” would be, in our circles, “King dom belong you that’s all, you strong fella, you got name all the time. True!”

It is translatable as “Yours is the King dom, the Power and the Glory, for ever and ever, Amen.”

Through the ages, the languages of all countries have been changed about and added to by social and economic uphea vals, by invasion, peaceful penetration and war. It is reasonable to expect, therefore, that such large bodies of fight ing men as New Guinea now holds will leave most definite evidence of their sojourn upon the language of the coun try. Already, in Papua, whose language was Motuan and not Pidgin, we see signs of the times in the rather rapid intro duction of this Pacific Esperanto.

IF necessary, an amendment to the emigration laws should be passed to

keep out such language-slaughterers

as the writer in “Asia.” But. on the other hand, if the colourful phraseology of the Yankees is to be grafted onto the already

picturesque patter of good Pidgin, we cer tainly are going to have some language!

Visualise the day when “jeep” and “lease-lend” and “no kiddin’ ” and “so what?” and various other odds and ends become part of your cook-boy’s vocabu lary. And, by the same token, there are many Pidgin expressions that would, and probably will, make mighty fine decora tions for the language of the great USA.

At a service conducted recently in New Guinea by Bishop T. N. Strong, Angli can Bishop of New Guinea, £65 was sub scribed by an AIF battalion for recon struction of mission buildings in Papua, which have been destroyed by the Japan ese. The money was given as a sign of appreciation of the work carried out by the mission among the natives.

Since the political barrier between Papua and New Guinea disappeared, a year ago, and New Guinea police-boys and labourers entered Papua, pidgin Eng lish is coming rapidly into use in Papua, displacing the Motu language which the late Sir Hubert Murray tried to make the lingua franca of the Territory.

Two London charwomen were discuss ing the inconveniences of the blackout.

“But it’s a necessary evil,” said one. “Else we’re likely to be blasted into maternity.”

“ ’Tis so,” said her companion. “And the worst of it is, we’d never know who done it.”