[Mihalic] retskin

[Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies]

Re: "na wanem!". I think this is very widespread, often even shortened to
"na!?"

Don

At 18:25 +0200 25/4/04, Eva Lindström wrote:
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>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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