Use Of Pidgin

Controversial!

English

In Sw Pacific

HANDS Off Pidgin English,” a spirited defence of the com mercial Lingua Franca of New Guinea, by Professor Robert A. Hall, Jr., will be published this month, and should be available in Islands shops and libraries in February.

The 1 h million natives in Aus tralian New Guinea, mostly illiter ates, speak hundreds of different languages. They have only a slight knowledge of English; and the Ad ministration, long ago, gave up the attempt to establish one native language for the whole people. Con sequently, the problem of how best to communicate with the natives, en masse, is officially still not solved.

Meanwhile, need has found a way.

Planters, missionaries, shipowners, miners and, finally, the Adminis tration officials themselves, now use Pidgin English as their chief, if not their only, means of communicating regularly and immediately with the great majority of natives in contact with Europeans.

Pidgin English (“Pidgin” is be lieved to be the result of a Chinese attempt to pronounce “Business”) was brought to New Guinea from Southeast Asia over 60 years ago by the Germans, as a means of com municating with the thousands of plantation labourers whom they had brought in from the Chinese coast.

It is mostly a corruption of English and some Malay words, pronounced in a particular way and used accord ing to the prevailing native syntax.

It is learned with extraordinary ease, and is in general use now in New Guinea, Solomons and New Hebrides.

The majority of educationalists are strongly critical of Pidgin—they declare that it never can be used as a medium of instruction and a means of improving native standards of life. Mr. Hall, who is Professor of Linguistics at Cornell University, USA, recently made a close and lengthy study of Pidgin, and he now insists that far from being spurned and rejected by scholars and official dom, it can be adapted and used for all necessary educational and administrative purposes, thus sim plifying immensely the problems of the Australian Administration.

The thousands of people who are connected in some way with admin istration and education in Mel anesia will find that this 142-pages’ book challenges their attention and interest. They may not agree with the author, but they cannot ignore him.

The three main sections deal with the history, nature and function of Pidgin, its structure and its apparent future; there is an excellent biblio

graphy, showing the extent of Pro fessor Hall’s researches: and then there is a section giving samples of of Pidgin, and analyses.