[Mihalic] Malo

[Eva Lindstrom]

I haven't heard malo (/maro) or sulu in New Ireland, PNG. But
then, men there traditionally wore nothing (well, adornments, no
doubt), and women wore leaves suspended back and front from a
string around the waist.

Nor have I heard lavalava, but NI languages mostly permit closed
syllables, so laplap is no problem in that way.

In Bislama 'laplap' is the national dish, and perhaps laplap
already had another meaning in the Torres Straight too, causing
the item of clothing to take another form to avoid confusion?

Eva Lindström
Linguistics
Stockholm University

John Burton wrote:
> Malo-ists
>  
> I should have pointed out that malo and maro are both in the OED online, 
> but as can been are Tahiti/Hawaii centered. My 1843 example was from 
> Nauru, obviously on the future PNG's doorstep.
> (1) No, the words are not in the other dictionaries, but are there 
> fluent Pijin/Bislamists out there whose memories are jogged by malo/maro?
> (2) Does anyone agree with the 1850 distinction below between malo and sulu?
> (3) Is sulu in Tok Pisin???
> (4) Lavalava is used in Torres Strait Creole where TP has laplap - are 
> there any places in PNG where Tok Pisin speakers (very old ones 
> perhaps?) ever use lavalava?
>