We are actually extremely lucky that the language here is Bislama...a quick history lesson (courtesy of Wiki) During the period known as Blackbirding, in the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of thousands of Pacific islanders were enslaved and forced to work on plantations mainly in Queensland,Australia and Fiji. With several languages being spoken in these plantations, a pidgin was formed, combining English vocabulary with grammatical structures typical of languages in the region.
More than 95% of Bislama words are of English origin; the remainder combines a few dozen words from French, as well as some vocabulary inherited from various local languages. Since the influence of these vernacular languages is low on the vocabulary side you basically have to be very descriptive and use the 50 word Bislama vocab to get to the point.
For example, there are plenty of synonyms in English...pretty, beautiful, gorgeous, cute...all various degrees but in Bislama it's "gat kala" (got color).
Here are some other ones...
Yufella i stap go.
You (plural) are going.
Hemi gat bel.
She is pregnant.
Hemi gat gris.
He/She is fat.
Hemi gat sit sit wota.
He/She has diarrhea.
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1 comment:
Very interesting blog on the Bislama language!
Here's a site that might give you some more practice: Bislama wiki browser
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