Bislama

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Bislama

Bislama is a Melanesian creole language, one of the official languages of Vanuatu. It is the first language of many of the "Urban ni-Vanuatu" (those who live in Port Vila and Luganville), and the second language of the rest of the country's residents.

Bislama is a mixture of words from English, French, and various North, Central, and South Vanuatu languages, with a syntax most resembling a Vanuatu language.

Bislama is closely related to Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea, Pijin of the Solomon Islands, and Torres Strait Creole north of Australia.

"Yumi, Yumi, Yumi", the Vanuatu national anthem, is in Bislama.

History

Thousands of Ni-Vanuatu were recruited to work mainly on Queensland, Australia, as well as Fiji plantations in the 1870s and 1880s. With several languages being spoken in these plantations, a pidgin was formed.

Similarly, whaling captains who picked up help from Africa, and the Pacific Islands often were forced to 'invent' a sort of pidgin English and Bislama bears a striking resemblance to Pidgin Englishes of West Africa (where the slave trade was also active at one time) and it is possible that Bislama is one branch of an evolution of pidgins from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the first truly global trading system began.

Over the past century or so, Bislama has evolved to what is currently spoken and even written. Only recently has the first dictionary of Bislama been published, and this has helped to create a uniform spelling on Bislama. Because Vanuatu is one of the most language-dense countries in the world (one count puts it at 113 languages for a land area the size of Connecticut state), the pidgin language is useful for communication between ni-Van as well as with foreigners. Most ni-Van also know their local language, the local language of their papa and that of their mama, and their spouse, and formal schools are taught in English or in French.

Related languages are Pijin of the Solomon Islands, Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea, and the Torres Strait Creole.

Name

The name of Bislama (previously also spelled "Bichelama") comes via the 19th century word "Beach-la-Mar" from the French "bêche de mer" sea cucumber, which itself comes from an alteration of the Portuguese "bicho do mar"."bêche-de-mer", American Heritage Dictionary, 2000 In the mid-nineteenth century, sea cucumbers were also harvested and dried at the same time that sandalwood was gathered. The name came to be associated with the kind of pidgin that came to be used by the local laborers between themselves, as well as their English-speaking overseers.

Grammar

Probably the two most important words in Bislama are "long" and "blong" which take the place of many prepositions in English or French.

"Long"

Long as 'next to' 'by' 'beside' etc...
Stoa long haos: The store next to the house. 'Nia' or near is also used.

long as 'at' or 'to'
Mi bin long ples ia wan taem bifo: I have been to this place once before.
Mi stap long stoa: I am at the store.

long as 'in'
Jea long haos: The chair in the house.

Long holds many other related meanings, and is sometimes used in improvisation.

"Blong"

Widely believed to be a form of "Belong" takes the place of 'of' or the genitive case in other languages. It is widely used and can indicate possession, country of origin, defining characteristics, etc...
Buk blong mi: The book that belongs to me, my book
Man blong Amerika: Man from America, American.
Hemi woman blong saiens. She is a woman of science, She is a scientist.
Man blong man: Man of man i.e. homosexual

This is truly one of the most versatile words in the language.

Verbs

Verbs in Bislama do not conjugate. Usually they consist of a stem word borrowed from English, French or Melanesian languages and on many transitive verbs the ending -em, -im, or -um, depending on vowel harmony. There is a past tense and a future tense marker that usually goes at the beginning of the sentence or next to the verb. For example:

mi wantem bia I want beer.

mi bin wantem bia I wanted beer (bin=past tense marker, borrowed presumably from the English form of to be "been")

Bambae mi wantem bia I will want beer. (Bambae=future tense marker)

Nouns

Most nouns are phonetically simplified versions of English, French, or Melenasian words. The plural is formed by putting "ol" before the word: bia=beer. Ol bia=beers. When used with numbers, the singular form is used. 2 bia, 3 bia, etc...

Pronouns

Bislama features dual, triple, and multiple plural personal pronouns as well as an inclusive and exclusive we. Following are the Bislama plural personal pronouns, in italics the English transliteration where useful to understand/remember, and the grammatical category.

We, us
Yumitu: You and me two: first person, inclusive, dual
Yumitri: You and me three first person, inclusive, triple.
Yumi: You and me first person, inclusive, plural (4+)
Mitufala Me two fellows first person exclusive, dual
Mitrifala Me three fellows first person exclusive, triple
Mifala, Me fellows first person, exclusive, plural (4+)

You (plural)
Yutufala, seond person, dual
Yutrifala, second person, triple
Yufala, second person, plural (4+)

They
Tufala, third person dual
Trifala, third person triple
Oli (olifala), third person, plural (4+)

The singular personal pronouns are; mi (I), yu (you) and Emi (he/she/it).
They do not decline.

Dialects

Dialects exist, based mainly on different pronunciations in different areas which stem from the different sounds of the native languages. The future tense marker can be heard to be said as: Bambae, Mbae, Nambae, or Bae. There are also preferences for using Bislama or native words that vary from place to place, and most people insert English, French, or local language words to fill out Bislama. So in the capital city it is common to hear 'computer'. In other places you might hear 'ordinateur'.

Bislama does not have official 'words' for some things necessitating borrowing words or descriptions. Again this depends on region, and to whom you are speaking. One of the most colorful features of Bislama is its long-winded descriptions of concepts or objects not common to Vanuatu. The ambiguity of Bislama due to its simplification often requires very long sentences in order to specify. For example, globalization could be described as: wan samting wea ol kantri long world olgeta exchangem sam samting witem ol difren countries, i bekeken ol man oli go long difren ples long wol, oli fri go wok long difren ples, i ol man oli sharem ol difren idia tua bekeken: A thing where all countries in the world trade things with each other, and people can go all over the world and work in different places and people share all sorts of different ideas too.

Melanesian Creole Comparison

English	Bislama	Pijin	Tok Pisin	Torres Strait Creole
and	mo	an	na
the / this	__ ia / ya	__ ia	dispela __	dis __
he / she / it / him / her	hem	hem	em / en	em
for	from	fo	long	po
(adjective marker)	-fala	-fala	-pela	-Ø
woman	woman	woman / mere	meri	oman

Culture

In Vanuatu culture it is rude to talk about certain matters explicitly or to overly use someone's name in conversation lest there be malicious eavesdroppers, leading to cryptic phrases only understandable to the participants.

References

External links

Tam Tam, news in Bislama
A bibliography of Bislama, from an Australian National University website
A short description of Bislama, from a University of New England (Australia) website
Tok-Pisin Wikipedia

English pidgin and creole languages | Languages of Vanuatu | Languages of Oceania | Pidgins and creoles

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