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In:Variation Rolls the Dice: A worldwide collage in honour of Salikoko S. Mufwene
Edited by Enoch O. Aboh and Cécile B. Vigouroux
[Contact Language Library 59] 2021
► pp. 57–80

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A local history of Tok Pisin

Language contact in Papua New Guinea

 | University of Pennsylvania
Published online: 12 October 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/coll.59.03san
Abstract
Research on language contact in Papua New Guinea beginning in the mid 1960s, prior to national independence, revealed linguistic micro-evolution as constrained by society, culture, and people’s relationships “on the ground”. Among speakers of Buang, most men and women under 40 were already fluent in Tok Pisin. Many also spoke another Austronesian language learned at missionary schools: Yabem. Exploring the micro-evolution of Buang speech varieties along the river valley, this chapter situates ‘place’ as fundamental in the differentiation of Buang speech varieties. It further attempts to show how the inter-influence of speech varieties in complex repertoires can be culturally framed as natural and unproblematic.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The early history of Tok Pisin
  • 3.Exploitation colonization in Papua New Guinea: Earliest impacts on Buang villagers
  • 4.The Bulolo Gold Rush of the 1930s
  • 5.World War II and beyond
  • 6.Discussion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
References (66)
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