Tok Pisin

Tok Pisin
Pronunciation[tok pisin][1]
Native toPapua New Guinea
Native speakers
130,000 (2004–2016)[2]
L2 speakers: 4,000,000[2]
Latin script (Tok Pisin alphabet)
Pidgin Braille
Official status
Official language in
 Papua New Guinea
Language codes
ISO 639-2tpi
ISO 639-3tpi
Glottologtokp1240
Linguasphere52-ABB-cc
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A Tok Pisin speaker, recorded in Taiwan

Tok Pisin (English: /tɒk ˈpɪsɪn/ TOK PISS-in,[3][4] /tɔːk, -zɪn/ tawk, -⁠zin;[5] Tok Pisin [tok pisin][1]), often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin, is an English creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in the country. However, in parts of the southern provinces of Western, Gulf, Central, Oro, and Milne Bay, the use of Tok Pisin has a shorter history and is less universal, especially among older people.

Between five and six million people use Tok Pisin to some degree, although not all speak it fluently. Many now learn it as a first language, in particular the children of parents or grandparents who originally spoke different languages (for example, a mother from Madang and a father from Rabaul). Urban families in particular, and those of police and defence force members, often communicate among themselves in Tok Pisin, either never gaining fluency in a local language (tok ples) or learning a local language as a second (or third) language, after Tok Pisin (and possibly English). Over the decades, Tok Pisin has increasingly overtaken Hiri Motu as the dominant lingua franca among town-dwellers.[6] Perhaps one million people now use Tok Pisin as a primary language. Tok Pisin is slowly "crowding out" other languages of Papua New Guinea.[7][6]

  1. ^ a b Smith 2008.
  2. ^ a b Tok Pisin at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  3. ^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh
  4. ^ "Tok Pisin | Definition of Tok Pisin in English by Oxford Dictionaries". Oxford Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original on September 24, 2018. Retrieved 2018-09-24.
  5. ^ "Definition of Tok Pisin". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2022-11-16.
  6. ^ a b Mühlhäusler, Dutton & Romaine 2003, pp. 1–5.
  7. ^ A.V. (24 July 2017). "Papua New Guinea's incredible linguistic diversity". The Economist. Retrieved 20 July 2017.