Dear Colleagues

Father Frank Mihalic’s Dictionary and Grammar of Melanesian Pidgin, originally published in 1959 and in a revised edition in 1971, is the only comprehensive dictionary of Papua New Guinea’s most widely spoken language, Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea Pidgin).

Consultations among a group of contacts from the Divine Word University, the University of Papua New Guinea, the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, the Australian National University, and others using Tok Pisin professionally, have suggested that an email list is the way to begin revision of this noted work to reflect the language as it is used in the 21^st century. Hence the launching of the ‘Revising the Mihalic’ list.

Both before retiring from Papua New Guinea to the USA in 1999, and by email in the short time before his death on 8 December 2001 (see obituary), Fr. Mihalic was generous in lending his support for the project. In acknowledgment of his contributions, both to the dictionary and to the promotion of Tok Pisin publishing over many decades, we have decided to go with his name in the project title while making the institution he had so much to do with, the Divine Word University, and which today holds substantial archival resources relating to Tok Pisin, its home.

Many questions are raised even before we get started. Are typical urban speakers nowadays speaking English, Tok Pisin, or something else? Is Tok Pisin still the right name for this language? How should its words be spelled—like Mihalic proposed, or do we compromise under the flood-tide of English imports? Is Wantok Niuspepa is really in Tok Pisin (it might be English transscribed into Tok Pisin!)?

A substantial amount of linguistic work on Tok Pisin has built up over the years by many people: theses, papers, course materials, translation guides and so on. We acknowledge these, and hope those who have taken this kind of work further than most will want to contribute.

In launching the list, our message is simple: Tok Pisin is not owned by any one person, clan, tribe, or even racial group, and it has many poorly documented regional variants.

Examples

A Sepik fisherman might catch a makau, but wouldn’t be advised to take his or her por (monohull canoe) out into the blu or bik daun (deep ocean), all words that are not much use to folk who live in hilly country. Rai Coast people play the mambu tambaran (‘sacred bamboo trumpet’) and say yar (German: Jahr), that to most others is a tree (the casuarina) or the Pleiades (the stars), not a year (English: yia). A highlander is more likely to be found sutim baret (digging a ditch) than sutim garamut (hitting a slit drum with wooden staves) and it depends where you live what you understand by sutim nus (1. ‘nose piercing ceremony’, 2. ‘to cock a snook at’). On the other hand, coastal people may not have caught up with newly coined terms such as Wahgi Besta (introduced carp infesting the Wahgi River) or know what it is to travel the Highlands Highway in a wait hos (new type of 30-seater bus that is white all over).

The alluvial miners of Wau and Bulolo talk about badam (non-gold bearing bed-rock), was (a sandy deposit in an old river channel or pond that has gold in it) and manganis (a band of purple gold-bearing clay). From the 1920s they appear to have played a form of soccer that came to be known variously as Wau kik, kik kros, pilai twelv or stail 46 (or is it 47?), similar in objectives to State of Origin, and with uniquely hazardous positions such as was kona (‘forward pocket’?).

When Talatala (Lutherans) gather it’s a sam (Yabem sam ‘pig market’)—not to be confused with New Guinea islands samsam (a dance)—while Bobi (Catholics) wear krusa and carry their santu from village to village.

Bush people, perhaps those who are still long banara yet (haven’t been pacified), process sis in a soaking pit (the poisonous fruit of Pangium edule), while urban-dwellers (some of them skin bret) buy the plastic wrapped variety. Old folk knew that when tupela florin pinis it meant wedding bells and could tell a balus kondis (‘Qantas plane’) coming by the thrum of its piston engines (a DC3).

The Germans (Kavieng, Rabaul: sweinera!), Australians (probably many added senses to the verb hariap!) and Chinese (listen very carefully to the words spoken by the Chinese cook in the original King Kong movie) have all added their own things. Why, even Papuans, especially Saki (Keremas who supposedly eat a lot of sago) speak Tok Pisin now.

Every group has made its own unique additions to the language. Let’s agree to say that it is a member of the worldwide family of English-based pidgins and creoles and to welcome anyone aboard who has something to contribute.

This is important. Tok Pisin is famous for its lack of pretentions. As a man I know declared in a speech recently, ‘Mi no man bilong werim nektai na karim briefcase in front of the people’ (note: briefcase, a container of secrets of power)—the language is surely like this; it’s a big mixture and it doesn’t have to be this or that, ‘to wear a tie and carry a briefcase’, to perform effectively for its speakers. If we want to have a successful dictionary project we must hold onto this and consider it a wok bung, not a life’s work for an individual.

Let us therefore begin work using the MIHALIC email list. This will be the main vehicle for the first phase of the project. Many Pacific interest groups now operate via the web and there are now many hundreds of Papua New Guineans studying overseas, all of whom have access to the internet through their institutions, as you will know if you have looked at the live exchanges on ‘PNG Wantok Forum’. There are many thousands of others who live/have lived in PNG who are connected: most mission groups, most NGOs, thousands of anthropologists and linguists.

We do recognise that within Papua New Guinea itself Telikom and ISP arrangements are not so simple. Many people do have the internet, but it is very expensive and not everyone can stay online for long. Still, quite a lot more people use email only (i.e. connect for as short a time as possible), and this is all you need.

The MIHALIC list (join here) is being administered at the Australian National University, on behalf of Divine Word University.

All welcome!

John Burton, Pat Gesch
List administrators

John.Burton at anu.edu.au
pgesch at dwu.ac.pg

Read the Post-Courier’s obituary of Fr Mihalic.