[Mihalic] words on the query list

[BURTON John]

D & D

Go for it. 'Okay' and 'so' are easy, because there is no doubt that they
are now fully naturalised, as the OED likes to put it. How the should be
spelled is another matter and my personal opinion is that we shouldn't
be too purist in these matters. For example 'okay' might be spelled
strictly as 'okei', but how do other languages that have also accepted
it deal with it? Spanish? French? German? Swahili? Etc

Another to make the passage is 'but'. Do we write 'bat' (as in 'bata')?!

John Burton

-----Original Message-----
From: David & Dorothy Counts [mailto:countsd at cablelan.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, 26 November 2003 2:58 PM
To: BURTON John
Subject: Re: [Mihalic] words on the query list


John,

Dorothy and I have just completed the transcription and translation of a
first person marrative in Tok Pisin from Kaliai West New Britain.  It
was taped by us this past July in Kandoka village from a man who in 1996
with his two children (aged at the time three and five years) survived
being adrift in a small open boat for 32 days (June 5 - July 7 1996). It
is a fascinating story of resoucefulness and survival, but the point of
my writing is that the TP strikes me as worthy of the group having a
look at. Our TP was rusty after an 18 year absence from the village, but
it also proved to be bordering on the archaic. I am curious how to
distinguish between code switching between English and TP on the one
hand and English words that have been effectively borrowed into TP on
the other hand: phononogy?, inflection???  For instance, in place of the
old fashioned topic introductions /_orait_/, and /_em nau_/we now are
getting "Okay..." or "So...".  The speaker, Ben Paga Ngaloko, is _not_
fluent in English, and my impression is that he was speaking Tok Pisin
throughout. He has not had work experience outside the village, married
traditionally, etc etc.  Anyway, how would you recommend that we
proceed?  I don't want to burden people with a lengthy text, but it is a
rich one!

Thanks

David Counts