Book Reviews

Keeping up with the growing importance of Pidgin

Neo-Melanesian, or New Guinea Pidgin, is a language in its own right—not baby talk or broken English. It is spoken by more than a million people and taught at the University of Queensland.

Historically, it began among the New Britain peoples who were work ing as indentured labourers in the plantations of Queensland a century ago. It was born as a compromise, with the Australian managers furnish ing most of the vocabulary and the labourers cementing these into a matrix of Melanesian grammar.

It was primarily the boys’ language, for they developed it. And it is still living and growing in New Guinea and in the Melanesian islands to the east. Government business, radio stations, some newspapers, the mis sions, the P-NG House of Assembly depend on the use of Pidgin.

For those who want to speak Pidgin, or at least know something about it, two new aids have been produced by Brisbane’s Jacaranda Press—the first a small, cheap pocket book, Introduction to New Guinea Pidgin, by Father F. Mihalic, SVD, and second an extensive course in cluding a set of longplay tapes, called A Programmed Course in New Guinea Pidgin, which has been prepared by Rober Litteral. of the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Small dictionary

Father Mihalic’s pocketbook is a small dictionary, with an introduc tion, It’s been prepared for the visitor, and the transient, for those who don’t plan any extensive study of the language.

There are other small dictionaries already in existence—which have proved themselves over the years— but there is always room for a new one, and especially an up-to-date one from an expert like Father Mihalic, whose Grammar and Dic tionary of Neo-Melanesian is already a basic reference work. This new little book also gives useful phrases.

such as medical complaints, house hold terms, clothing.

Since 96 per cent, of New Guinea’s many existing languages have still yet to be written down. Father Mihalic appreciates the detribalising, communicative unifying value of New Guinea Pidgin, and sees some merit in the arguments of those who think it should be the territory’s official language. ‘lf one objects that in such a case it were better to advise the choice of standard English and be done with it,” he says in his introduction, “one must realise that a language is a living thing. It cannot simply be legislated.

It grows; it grows on people. No matter how many New Guineans at this moment speak standard English, they never feel it is their language.

It remains ever foreign. However, they do feel that Neo-Melanesian belongs to them,”

Mr. Litteral makes the same point. ’’One reason that so many Europeans in New Guinea have never learned Pidgin properly,” he says, “is that they regard it as a ‘barbaric dialect’ of English. Often, as a result, they speak ‘broken’ English, or a type of English resembling that which is supposed to be spoken by American Indians—a dialect that anvone who

has ever seen a Western movie can speak.

“These people fail to see that Pidgin is a language, and not just a dialect of English (just as English is not a dialect of German). Pidgin has its own grammatical structure and vocabulary, even though much of this vocabulary is borrowed from English. For many children born in urban areas it is their mother tongue.

With Papuans and New Guineans as suming increasing responsibility for the development of their country, it would not be surprising if Pidgin became the national language when independence is granted.

“If one is to learn this language properly, he must approach the learning task with the same attitude that he would have if he were learn ing French or German.”

Available to public

This programmed course prepared by Robert Litteral was originally developed to meet the needs of new members of the New Guinea branch of the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

It has been revised and here made available to the general public.

The textbook is to be followed in conjunction with the tapes, which can be played on most portable machines available in the Islands.

The textbook in the programmed course is no good without the tapes, although, of course, one set of tapes can be wedded to any number of

textbooks for group instruction.-

EW.

(Introduction To New Guinea

Ptdgtn, 85C. A Programmed Course

IN NEW GUINEA PIDGIN. $2.95 for the textbook and $13.50 for the tapes. All published by the Jacaranda Press).