Sample of another pidgin / creole language

[David Robertson]

LhaXiyEm, Tony,

You might could be interested to see this.  From a newspaper I've
mentioned before, published in Vanuatu, the South Pacific, this is
someone's "Stolen Bicycle" ad  written in Bislama -- basically "Pidgin
English" which has become a creole.  The similarities to how ChInUk Wawa
developed from its source languages really strike me...

Bicycle blong  pikinini blong mi i     lus  long     haos blong mi
        belong child          me he/it lost along/at house

long Joint Court Area.  Emi             wan brand niu-fala
                        Him/it[subject] one       new-fellow[~="piece"]

bicycle mo colour blong hem    i green mo ikat     training wheels
        and/more        him/it           'he got'

long side.


Sapos      yu  faenem,                           plis   karem
If/suppose you 'find him'[-em = transitive verb] please carry/bring it

ikam                    long Sign Language long Rossi Building mo reward
'he come'[i-=causative]

blong man     we       i  faenem bicycle ia        hemi
      who/man if/where he                this/here 'him he'[emphatic
                                                              subject]

Vt3,000.
[Vanuatu money]

STOLEN BICYCLE:  My kid's bike was lost from my house in the Joint Court
Area.  It's a brand new bike and its color is green, and it has training
wheels on the side.  If you find it, please bring it to Sign Language
in the Rossi Building, and the reward to the one who finds this bike is
Vt.3000.

...Anyhow, it fascinates me to see these contact languages, where certain
words always seem to get borrowed from English or French (spose / sapos /
pus is a good example; so is pi / pe / puis from French).  And lots of
grammatical structures show up nearly identically in all sorts of contact
languages, regardless of how different the native languages of the
speakers are.  A case of this is "bicycle blong pikinini" above, which is
extremely similar, in its way of showing possession, to ChInUk Wawa "tunus
yaka ch'ikchi'k".

Not to talk your ear off, but these other languages have good experience
to share with the Wawa:  Some, like this Bislama, and Tok Pisin in Papua
New Guinea, and Creole in Haiti, are actual national languages.  They've
become languages of everyday modern life.

Cool.

Hope your family and you are doing well; best from
Dave