[Mihalic] Muhlhausler's revision of Mihalic's dictionary

[Thomas H. Slone]

After several years, I recently took another look at the Handbook of 
Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin), edited by S. A. Wurm & P. Mühlhäusler 
(Pacific Linguistics Series C-70, Canberra: Australian National 
University, 1985).  A chapter by Mühlhäusler in the book titled "The 
scientific study of Tok Pisin: Tok Pisin dictionary making: 
Theoretical considerations and practical experiences" (pp. 577-593) 
indicated that Mühlhäusler planned to revise Mihalic's dictionary (p. 
582).

Does anyone know what happened to this project?  Maybe someone could 
ask him for his manuscript?

Mühlhäusler reports his partial preliminary revision of Mihalic on 
pp. 591-593 for the words "a" through "aidin".

A summary of Mühlhäusler's changes are as follows:

New words:
a-a: yes (colloquial)
administreta: alternative spelling of etministreta
agai: ouch!
ai: Wow!
Ai sit!: Shit!

Additional definition:
abrus, abris: overtaking
abus: animal (possibly from English "animals")

Definition clarification:
Aiai: "The so-called New Guinea apple.  In some districts also called 
laulau.  In other districts again there is a difference made between 
aiai and laulau.  Aiai is an egg-shaped apple; and laulau a 
raund-shaped apple.  There are other fruits, white, red and yellow, 
shaped like a small bell; these fruits are also called aiai, resp. 
'laulau.'"

Etymologic clarification:
Aibika: from Tolai "ibika"

Urban/rural dichotomy:
Aidia (urban) vs. tinging (rural)
Adres, adresim (urban)

Mühlhäusler also noted that the TP "bel" is derived both from the 
English "belly" and the Tolai "bala" (belly) (p. 585).  Mihalic had 
only noted the English derivation.

--Tom Slone
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