A Little Tok Pisin Lesson

First of all, the "s" in Pisin is pronounced like a soft "z".  Or you can call it Tok Pidgin.

It's not hard to believe that most languages have at least a couple hundred thousand words.  But Tok Pisin (the trade language of Papua New Guinea) only has a little over 1,800 words?  It makes it very hard to communicate specific thoughts.  Many times you have to talk in circles around what you're trying to say just to get your point across. 

Tok Pisin is very phonetic. And there's only one sound per letter.  So a word sounds exactly how it's spelled and is spelled exactly how it sounds.

Tok Pisin is based 85% from English, so many times you can pick out what people are talking about just by listening for a minute.  But when you read it, it's entirely different from our spelling.  And an f may be turned into a p, or a g turned into a k.

There's only one preposition in the whole language: "long".  It means to, for, with, of, at, on, etc. 

Mi go long wokabaut = I'm going on a walk

If someone/something belongs to someone/something else, just make sure you know the word "bilong." 

Papa bilong mi = my father 

Meri bilong brata bilong mi = my brother's wife

Wara bilong yu = your water

See?  You could learn Tok Pisin, too.  It's hard to believe that I can hold a [very basic] conversation with a national now.  After living 5 weeks in a village, completely immersed in the language 100% of the time, I can't wait to see how much I know.

Here's the [very short] stori bilong mi (my story) in Tok Pisin: 

And here's John 3:16 in Tok Pisin:

"God i gat wanpela Pikinini tasol i stap.  Tasol God i laikim tumas olgeta manmeri bilong graun, olsem na em i givim dispela wanpela Pikinini long ol.  Em i mekim olsem bilong olgeta manmeri i bilip long em ol i no ken lus.  Nogat.  Bai ol i kisim laip i stap gut oltaim oltaim."