Animals - part 4 - other

[Thomas H. Slone]

Examples below are again from Wantok Newspaper's Stori Tumbuna unless 
otherwise noted.

Other animal definitions:

abus: 1. as per Mihalic 2. girl (Tok Piksa) (Mühlhäusler, 1991: 640, 644-645)
Question: A. Mihalic says abus is derived from a Gazelle Peninsula 
language.  Romaine (1992: 158-159) says it's from the "English 
animals borrowed in the early stages of development and subjected to 
various natural phonological changes (i.e. /l/ vocalization, loss of 
unstressed syllable, and replacement of /m/ with homorganic stop") or 
from Gazelle Peninsula words for animal such as basi, basibasi, pasi, 
and posi.  Anyone care to comment on this?
Comments: It will be useful to note degree of offensiveness for some 
meanings.  Meaning 2, above, probably would cause offense for 
example.  Also, it might be a good idea to have a summary description 
of registers: Tok Piksa = metaphoric speech, Tok Bokis = secretive 
speech, Tok Pilai = play-speech (see Brash, 1971), Tok Masta, sports 
speech, theological speech, student speech, rural and urban speech, 
and any others.  It might also be useful to have a description of 
popular but fake or incredible Tok Pisin.  Two examples of this are: 
helicopter as "Mixmaster belong Jesus Christ" [sic] (Liu, 1988) and 
piano as "Wan bigfella bokis inside he got plenty tiit all-same sark 
an time missus he hitim an kickim he cry out too much." [sic] 
(Rushton, 1983: 82).  A similar "definition" for piano appears in 
Aerts (1987: 25), quoting Friederici (1911): "Big fellow bokkes 
suppose misses he fight him, he cry too much." [sic]

bataflai: common spelling of bataplai in Wantok

binatang bilong saksak: sago beetle. Sago beetles (Rhyncophorus 
ferringinlus papuanus) are often encouraged to grow inside fallen 
sago trees. The beetle grubs eat the pith of the tree. The grubs are 
eaten by humans with relish since they are high in nutrition (May, 
1984: 95).

blakbokis: flying fox; large, frugivorous bats (Pteropus spp., 
probably conflated with other species in the Pteropodidae family) 
(Flannery, 1995: 347-402)
Question: would liklik blakbokis refer to other bats?

dokorok /rokrok / prok: frog (Mihalic; Murphy, 1985: 60)

donki: mule (Murphy, 1985: 60)

grasop, grasopa: grasshopper, cricket, katydid (order Orthoptera)

karakum, korakum, kurakum: 1. large red ant (Mihalic; Steinbauer, 
1998: 53) 2. to scramble for (i.e., scramble like an ant) Examples: 
"Na long nait planti ol blakbokis i save karakum long kaikai o 
pikinini diwai long nait." "Ol i save karakum antap long dispela 
diwai." "Man ol i karakum stret long kaikai pikinini bilong wanpela 
diwai em i mau pinis."

kiau: Mihalic says this is derived from a New Hanover language. 
Mosel (1980: 30) says it is from the Gazelle Peninsula.  Any comments 
on this?

maskita / natnat: mosquito (Mihalic; Murphy, 1985: 61)

moran: python; Papua New Guinea has eight species of python 
(subfamily Pythoninae of family Boidae) as well as two species of boa 
(subfamily Boinae) [O'Shea, 1996: 56-87]. Boas might also be referred 
to as moran.

plantihan, sentipit: centipede, millipede is probably conflated with centipede
Note: "plantihan" is only listed in the "Practical Word Groups" 
section of Mihalic, but not in the dictionary section.  I think there 
are other cases like this, but I don't have a list.

rat: 1. rat 2. mouse (liklik rat) 3. small, rodent-like marsupials

spaida: spider (order Araneae), daddy-long-legs (order Opiliones)


References:

Aerts, Theo (1987). "Tok Pilai Tasol." Bikmaus 7(1); 25-34.

Brash, Elton (1971). "Tok Pilai, Tok Piksa, na Tok Bokis (Imaginative 
Dimensions in Melanesian Pidgin)." Kivung: Journal of the Linguistic 
Society of Papua and New Guinea 4(1): 12-20.

Flannery, Timothy F. (1995). Mammals of New Guinea. Ithaca, NY: 
Cornell University Press.

Friederici, Georg (1911). "Pidgin-English in Deutsch-Neuguinea." 
Kolonialen Rudnschau 2 :92-106.

Liu, Melinda (1988). "The 49ers of the Pacific." Newsweek August 15.

Lobban, William D. (1985). "A collection of children's singing games 
of Papua New Guinea." Oral History 13(2).

Mosel, Ulrike (1980). Tolai and Tok Pisin: The Influence of the 
Substratum on the Development of New Guinea Pidgin, Series B, No. 73. 
Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University.

Mühlhäusler, Peter (1979). Growth and Structure of the Lexicon of New 
Guinea Pidgin. Series C, No. 52. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, The 
Australian National University.

Mühlhäusler, Peter (1991). "Watching Girls Pass by in Tok Pisin." 
English Around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Jenny 
Cheshire, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.

O'Shea, Mark (1996). A Guide to the Snakes of Papua New Guinea. Port 
Moresby: Independent Publishing.

Romaine, Suzanne (1992). Language, Education, and Development: Urban 
and Rural Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Rushton, Dorgon (1983). Brush Up Your Pidgin. London: Willow Books.

Steinbauer, Friedrich (1998). Neo-Melanesian-English Concise 
Dictionary: New Guinea Pidgin-English. New York: Hippocrene Books.

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