[Mihalic] "Vaialens"

Fr. Pat Gesch pgesch at dwu.ac.pg
Wed Dec 16 09:55:47 EST 2009


"Lapun na wip yet" has been around for quite a while, but I find the AIDS
poster to be a bit of an extension or abstraction: I think it can even be
applied to women. 

In the same area:-- In these days of reaching a hand to the Chinese, I am
not happy with the way "komunis" seems to mean violent. As in, "dispela bos
em i komunis stret, save paitim ol wokman bilong em."

     Pat Gesch

-----Original Message-----
From: mihalic-bounces at anu.edu.au [mailto:mihalic-bounces at anu.edu.au] On
Behalf Of David Week (personal)
Sent: Wednesday, 16 December 2009 8:25 AM
To: Martha Macintyre
Cc: Tok Pisin
Subject: Re: [Mihalic] "Vaialens"

Hi Martha

> I am baffled by the hostility to the incorporation of new words into Tok
> Pisin. This is the main way that all languages change. 

Not hostile at all. Rather, it's the method at work here which gets my goat.
This is not adoption: this is injection.

(a)	My friend's complaint is primarily against expatriate managers who
can't speak Tok Pisin properly, but think that they can get away with
putting up notices in what is basically broken English. Similar, is the
short-term expat workers who think that the words "Em i" followed by broken
English constitute Tok Pisin.

(b)	Here's what I find objectionable about this poster:

1	Created by an international NGO, who, it seems to me, would rather
transliterate international jargon that actually find out how to say it in
the local language. No way of saying "violence" in Tok Pisin? You must be
joking. 

2	The international NGO is supposed to be communicating an important
public service message to the broad mass of Papua New Guineans. This is not
the place for inventing new words. In this context, an international NGO
seeking to communicate in Tok Pisin should seek to use Tok Pisin as she is
spoke.

3	I question the legitimacy of foreign agencies making up new Tok
Pisin words at all. I apply the "shoe is on the other foot" test: how would
I feel if an American ad agency, say, communicated to me (in Melbourne) with
some "Australianism" they had dreamed up, on the basis of they think we
Australians speak. It's insulting, and in the same basket as the expats with
their broken English. 

I would be interested in knowing if there are recent cases in which English
has been expanded by non-English speakers attempting to communicate by
Anglicizing their own words (rather than by English speakers adopting
foreign words.) 

(c)	Another public service posted (funded by AusAID), had this slogan:
"Nogat condom? Maski long wip." I had to ask what "wip" meant, and my friend
made a suggestive, whip-like movement with his body. That explained both the
meaning and the etymology of the word perfectly.

"Wip",  and "loanoda", seems to me to be examples of the organic growth of
Tok Pisin: language evolved by the language users. "Vaialens" seems to me to
be a case of a foreign agency making up new words, and in so doing rendering
insult to Tok Pisin community: because in no other language would one dream
of doing so. It only happens with Tok Pisin because many foreigners
conceptualise it as broken English.

David

On 16/12/2009, at 8:11 AM, Martha Macintyre wrote:

> I am baffled by the hostility to the incorporation of new words into Tok
> Pisin. This is the main way that all languages change. And as for
> alternative spelling - most of Tok Pisin's lexicon is comprised of
> alternative spellings of English words - it's just that some have been
> around longer than others. Besides, if they have been incorporated it
makes
> sense to keep TP spelling system (such as it is)for new words.
> Martha
> 
> 
> On 16/12/09 7:46 AM, "David Week (personal)" <davidweek at cal.berkeley.edu>
> wrote:
> 
>> Encountered on a recent trip to PNG, on an NGO-produced poster about
family
>> violence: "vaialens".
>> 
>> This reminds me of a friend's constant complaint:
>> 
>> Tok Pisin: it's a language, not an alternative spelling system.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Mihalic mailing list
>> Mihalic at anu.edu.au
>> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/mihalic
> 


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