Bislama

This article is about the language. For the food, see sea cucumber (food).
Bislama
Region Vanuatu
Native speakers
 10,000 (2011)[1]
200,000 L2 speakers
English Creole

  • Pacific

    • Bislama
Latin
Official status
Official language in
 Vanuatu
Language codes
ISO 639-1 bi
ISO 639-2 bis
ISO 639-3 bis
Glottolog bisl1239[2]
Linguasphere 52-ABB-ce

Bislama (English /ˈbɪsləmɑː/;[3] Bislama: [bislaˈma]; also known under its earlier name in French Bichelamar[4] [biʃlamaʁ]) is a 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 much of the rest of the country's residents. "Yumi, Yumi, Yumi", the Vanuatu national anthem, is in Bislama.

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 languages of Vanuatu, essentially limited to flora and fauna terminology.[5] While the influence of these vernacular languages is low on the vocabulary side, it is very high in the morphosyntax. Bislama can be basically described as a language with an English vocabulary and phonology and an Oceanic grammar.[6]

History

During the period known as Blackbirding, in the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of thousands of Pacific islanders (many of them from the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) archipelago) were enslaved and forced to work on plantations, mainly in Queensland, Australia and Fiji.[7] With several languages being spoken in these plantations, a pidgin was formed, combining English vocabulary[8] with grammatical structures typical of languages in the region.[9] This early plantation pidgin is the origin not only of Bislama, but also of Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea and Pijin of the Solomon Islands, though not of Torres Strait Creole north of Australia.

This pidgin started spreading over the Vanuatu archipelago at the turn of the 20th century, as the survivors of Blackbirding began to come back to their native islands: knowledge of this pidgin would facilitate communication not only with European traders and settlers, but also between native populations of remote islands within the archipelago. This is how Bislama was born, progressively evolving separately from other related pidgins from the Pacific.

Because Vanuatu is the most language-dense country in the world (one count puts it at 113 languages for a population of 225,000),[10] Bislama usefully serves as a lingua franca for communication between ni-Vanuatu, as well as with and even between foreigners. Besides Bislama, most ni-Vanuatu also know their local language, the local language of their father and that of their mother, and their spouse, and formal schools are taught in English or in French.

Over the past century or so, Bislama has evolved to what is currently spoken and written. Only recently (1995, with second edition in 2004) has the first dictionary of Bislama[11] been published, and this has helped to create a uniform spelling of Bislama.

Name

The name of Bislama (also referred to, especially in French, as "Bichelamar") comes via the early 19th century word "Beach-la-Mar" from pseudo-French "biche de mer" or "bêche de mer", sea cucumber, which itself comes from an alteration of the Portuguese "bicho do mar".[12] In the early 1840s, sea cucumbers were also harvested and dried at the same time that sandalwood was gathered. The names biche-la-mar and 'Sandalwood English' 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.[13]

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in an account of his travels through the Pacific in 1888 and 1889, “the natives themselves have often scraped up a little English,... or an efficient pidgin, what is called to the westward 'Beach-la-Mar'.”'.[14] In Jack London's story "Yah! Yah! Yah!", one of his "South Sea Tales", there is repeated a reference to “a bastard lingo called bech-de-mer”, and much of the story's dialogue is conducted in it.

Today, the word "bislama" itself is seldom used by younger speakers of Bislama to refer to sea slugs, as a new re-borrowing from pseudo-French "bêche de mer", which has taken the form "besdemea", has become more popular.[15]

Grammar

Two frequent 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.

long as 'at' or 'to'
Mi bin stap long ples ia bifo: I have been to this place 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"

Originally from the English word "belong", blong takes the place of 'of' or the genitive case in other languages. Just like of in English, it is one of the most widely used and versatile words in the language, and can indicate possession, country of origin, defining characteristics, intention, and others.

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 dring: Man of drinking i.e. a drinker

Verbs

Verbs in Bislama usually consist of a stem word (borrowed from English, French or indigenous languages); most transitive verbs add to this a transitive suffix.[16] The form of that suffix is /-em/, /-im/, or /-um/, depending on vowel harmony. If the last vowel of the verb’s stem is either -u- or -i-, then that vowel will be copied into the transitive suffix. For all other stem vowels, the transitive suffix has its default form /-em/:

Morphology of transitive verb endings
English Bislama
etymon stem verb
dig dig- digim
clean klin- klinim
kiss kis- kisim
put put- putum
pull pul- pulum
cook kuk- kukum[17]
want wand- wandem
hear har- harem ‘hear, feel’
tell tal- talem ‘tell, say’
sell sal- salem
shut sat- sarem
catch kas- kasem ‘get, reach’
carry kar- karem ‘carry, bring’
ready rere ‘ready’ rerem ‘prepare’
take tek- tekem
find faen- faenem
call kol- kolem
hold hol- holem
follow fol- folem
show so- soem
look out lukaot- lukaotem ‘search’
pay pe- pem ‘buy’

Verbs do not conjugate. The tense, aspect and mood of a sentence are indicated with markers such as stap, bin and bae that are placed in the sentence.

Mi stap kakae taro - I'm eating taro
Mi bin kakae taro - I have eaten taro
Bae mi kakae taro - I will eat taro

Nouns

The plural is formed by putting "ol" before the word: bia=beer. Ol bia = "beers". "Ol" comes from the English "all". When used with numbers, the singular form is used. 2 bia, 3 bia, etc...

Pronouns

The personal pronouns of Bislama feature four grammatical numbers (singular, dual, trial and plural). They also encode the clusivity distinction: 1st person non-singular pronouns (equivalent of Eng. we) are described as inclusive if they include the addressee (i.e. {you + I}, {you + I + others}), but exclusive otherwise (i.e. {I + other people}). Bislama pronouns do not decline.

The personal pronouns of Bislama
singular dual trial plural
first person
(inclusive)
—
yumitu
yumitri
yumi
first person
(exclusive)
mi
mitufala
mitrifala
mifala
second person
yu
yutufala
yutrifala
yufala
third person
hem
hemi
tufala
tugeta
trifala
trigeta
ol / oli
olgeta

Tense/aspect/mood markers

stap + V : (progressive) ongoing or habitual action

hem i stap kukum kumala = he/she is cooking sweet potatoes

bin + V : past tense (with implication that the state is no longer true)

hemi bin sik long fiva = she was sick with fever [but is no longer sick]

V + finis : (perfective) "already" (when placed at the end of a phrase; elsewhere it means "finish")

hem i kakae finis = she has already eaten

bae + V (occasionally bambae): (irrealis) future or hypothetical actions (though, like in English, generally not used in conditional sentences)

bae mi go long Santo = I will go to Santo
sipos plen i no bin fulap, bae mi go long Santo = If the plane hadn't been full, I would have gone to Santo

no + V : negative, "not"

hem i no wantem yam = he doesn't want yam

nomo + V: "no longer" (when placed after the predicate; elsewhere it means "only")

hem i nomo kakae yam = he no longer eats yam
hem i kakae yam nomo = he only eats yam

neva + V : never

hem i neva kakae yam = he's never eaten yam

jes + V : (<"just") an action that has recently occurred

mifala i jes wekap = we just woke up

In a future context, jes entails a delay, rendered in Eng. as "eventually":

bae mi pem = I will buy it / Let me buy it
bae mi jes pem, be noyet = I will buy it (eventually), but not yet

V + gogo : continued action

hemi kukum kumala gogo = he keeps on cooking sweet potatoes

mas + V : "must", be obliged to

hem i mas kakae = he must eat

traem + V : "try to"; also sometimes used for politeness in requests

hem i stap traem katem = he's trying to cut it
traem soem long mi = could you show it me? (request)

wantem + V : "want to"

hem i wantem go long Santo = she wants to go to Santo

save + V : be able to, or be in the habit of doing

mi save rid = I can read
mi no save dring suga = I don't take sugar in drinks
fish ia i save kilim man = this fish can kill a person

Some of these markers also have lexical meanings. For example, save can mean "be able to" but it is also a verb "know".

Subordination

sapos + Clause : if

sapos yumitu faenem pig, bae yumitu kilim i ded = if we find a pig, we'll kill it

Internal variation

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'.

Pacific creole comparison

English Bislama Pijin Tok Pisin Torres Strait Creole
and mo an na ane / ne / an / a
the __ ia / ya __ ia dispela __ dha / dhemtu / dhem
this __ ia / ya __ ia dispela __ dhis __ (ia) / dhemtu __ ia / dhem __ ia
he / she / it / him / her hem hem em / en em
for from fo long po
(adjective marker) -fala -fala -pela -Ø when attributive (em i big man ‘he's a big man’)
-wan when predicative (man i bigwan ‘the man's big’)
woman woman woman / mere meri uman / oman (dialect difference)

Literature and samples

The longest written work in Bislama is the Bible completed in 1998.[18]

Luke 2:6-7:
Bislama:

"Tufala i stap yet long Betlehem, nao i kam kasem stret taem blong Meri i bonem pikinini. Nao hem i bonem fasbon pikinin blong hem we hem i boe. Hem i kavremap gud long kaliko, nao i putum hem i slip long wan bokis we oltaim ol man ol i stap putum gras long hem, blong ol anamol ol i kakae. Tufala i mekem olsem, from we long hotel, i no gat ples blong tufala i stap."

English:

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Yumi, Yumi, Yumi

Main article: Yumi, Yumi, Yumi

Bislama words

CHORUS:
Yumi, Yumi, yumi i glad long talem se
Yumi, yumi, yumi ol man blong Vanuatu

God i givim ples ya long yumi,
Yumi glat tumas long hem,
Yumi strong mo yumi fri long hem,
Yumi brata evriwan!

CHORUS

Plante fasin blong bifo i stap,
Plante fasin blong tedei,
Be yumi i olsem wan nomo,
Hemia fasin blong yumi!

CHORUS

Yumi save plante wok i stap,
Long ol aelan blong yumi,
God i helpem yumi evriwan,
Hem i papa blong yumi,

CHORUS

English translation

CHORUS:
We (, We, We) are happy to proclaim
We (, We, We) are the People of Vanuatu!

God has given us this land;
This gives us great cause for rejoicing.
We are strong, we are free in this land;
We are all brothers.

CHORUS

We have many traditions
And we are finding new ways.
But we are all one
We shall be united for ever.

CHORUS

We know there is much work to be done
On all our islands.
God helps all of us,
He is our father,

CHORUS

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Bislama at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Bislama". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
  4. ↑ Bislama, Ethnologue. Accessed Jan. 2, 2014.
  5. ↑ See Charpentier (1979).
  6. ↑ See Camden (1979).
  7. ↑ Emma Christopher, Cassandra Pybus and Marcus Buford Rediker (2007). Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World, University of California Press, pp 188-190. ISBN 0-520-25206-3.
  8. ↑ In addition, whaling captains who picked up workforce from Africa and the Pacific Islands had already developed some sort of pidginized English. Modern Bislama bears a striking resemblance to Pidgin Englishes of West Africa (where the slave trade was also active at one time); 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. See Monogenetic theory of pidgins.
  9. ↑ For this whole section, see: Tryon & Charpentier (2004), and Crowley (1990).
  10. ↑ See Crowley (2000:50); François (2012:86).
  11. ↑ See Crowley (1995).
  12. ↑ "bêche-de-mer", American Heritage Dictionary, 2000
  13. ↑ See Crowley (1990).
  14. ↑ Stevenson, Robert Louis (2004). In the South Seas (1st ed.). Fairfield, IA: 1st World Publishing. p. 15. ISBN 1-59540-504-6.
  15. ↑ Crowley, Terry (1990). "1". Beach-la-Mar to Bislama: The Emergence of a National Language in Vanuatu. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 33.
  16. ↑ Examples of transitive verbs which exceptionally don't take this suffix include: kakae ‘eat, bite’; trink ‘drink’; save ‘know’; se ‘say’.
  17. ↑ Note the exception: Eng. look → Bisl. lukim.
  18. ↑ Bislama | Ethnologue:Language Development

External links

Bislama edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Bislama phrasebook.
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