[Mihalic] retskin

[pcotterell at global.net.pg]

"Retskin" was (I cannot comment about now) widely used on
Bougainville when I lived there mainly to refer to Papua New
Guineans other than Bougainvilleans themselves. I can't
rememeber it being used for Europeans nor to refer to any
particular skin tone - it was merely a term to differentiate
between "us" and "them". The Bougainvileans in my office
state that it is still widely used.

Peter Cotterell
Lae - Papua New Guinea


>
> In westcoast New Ireland I've heard redskin of white
> people, as well as of Sepiks and various locals who have a
> redder skintone than the average in the region.
>
> An example of the use of retskin for whities: A boy of 7
> or 8 years saw pictures of my Swedish family for the first
> time after I had been there for several months. He said:
> "A! Na ol i retskin olgeta!?", not having reflected that
> white people tend to have white parents and siblings. The
> local language, Kuot, also uses a phrase meaning '[those]
> who have red skin' or 'red ones' as code for white people,
> so it wouldn't have been _just_ a general expression for
> light-skinned people recruited to mean white people at the
> spur of the moment.
>
> The boys mother said "na wanem!" which is an expression I
> am a little curious about. It's quite common in that area
> and translates something like "of course they are" or
> sometimes "are you stupid or what" -- not to be used in
> polite circum- stances but not definitely rude. Is this
> known from elsewhere?
>
> Eva
>
>
===================Eva
Lindström
> Linguistics
> Stockholm University
>
>
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