1. Tok Pisin & Hawai’i Creole English: English
Wantoks or Siblings? c
Craig Alan Volker
Professor of Linguistic Research
Divine Word University, Madang, PNg
cvolker AT dwu.ac.pg

2. Watpo sem sem?
Same Oceanic origin?
Diffusion?
Chance & universals?

3. Oceanic Origins
pau / pinis: Hanahana pau, orait, yufera slip. Wok pinis, orait, yupela slip.
pronouns Singular Dual Trial Plural mi mitufera mitrifera mifera yu yutufera yutrifera yufera him (data not certain)

4. Oceanic, in modern HCE, not in data
stap / stei durative: Ai laik stei tok stori.
bin / wen past: Ai wen bai da kain.
locative prepositions: andanit a da chri
transitive marker (“im”) : Yu no laik yusim hama?
answering negative questions

5. Typical Oceanic not in data
inclusive / exclusive “we”
predicate marker (“i”)
no general preposition “long”
productive reduplication

6. Oceanic but also Japanese
serial verbs of direction: Yufera kachi diswan kam! / Gachi diswan go!
no interrogative fronting: Yu laiki wat?

7. Common with Chinese Pidgin English
bilong / birong: Him haus birong mi
-fela / -fera adjectives: Man him bigfera. Tufera gud wahine.
-fela / -fera determiners: wanfera man / *wanfera tebol

8. Common English-derived words
conjunctions: olsem, sapos, taim, orait Olsem hanahana pau...
“ol” plural
adverbs of intensity: lelebet, tomachi Rerebet mani, tomachi pirikia.
ating Ating mi Japan go.

9. Word order usually SVO so prepositions & det-adj-n: Wanfera gud wahine
sometimes SOV (like Japanese): Taim mi Japan go.
sometimes postpositions (like Japanese): Mi stap ten klok made.

10. Wantoks or siblings? some words and morphemes have common ancestors
Structure in data not Oceanic
Some later diffusion into Hawai’i Creole English of Oceanic structures

11. Craig Alan Volker, Divine Word University, ca.volker@yahoo.de
Mahalo tenkyu tru
Craig Alan Volker, Divine Word University,