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Bislama ( ; ; also known by its earlier French name, ) is an
English-based creole language An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the '' lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the cr ...
. It is the national language of
Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...
, and one of the three official languages of the country, the other ones being English and French. Bislama is the first language of many of the "Urban
ni-Vanuatu Ni-Vanuatu (informally abbreviated Ni-Van) is a large group of closely related Melanesians, Melanesian ethnic groups native to the island country of Vanuatu. As such, ''ni-Vanuatu'' are a mixed ethnolinguistic group with a shared ethnogenesis tha ...
" (citizens who live in
Port Vila Port Vila ( ; ), or simply Vila (), is the capital of Vanuatu and its largest city. It is on the island of Efate, in Shefa Province. The population was 49,034 as of the 2020 census. In 2020, the population of Port Vila formed 16.3% of the ...
and
Luganville Luganville is the second largest city in Vanuatu after the capital Port Vila; it is located on the island of Espiritu Santo and has a population of 18,062 as of the 2020 census. Those on Vanuatu's northern islands who regard Luganville as their ...
) and the second language of much of the rest of the country's residents. The lyrics of " Yumi, Yumi, Yumi", the country's national anthem, are composed in Bislama. More than 95% of Bislama words are of English origin, whilst the remainder comprises a few dozen words from French as well as some specific vocabulary inherited from various languages of Vanuatu—although these are essentially limited to flora and fauna terminology. While the influence of these vernacular languages is low on the vocabulary side, it is very high in the
morphosyntax In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, wh ...
. As such, Bislama can be described simply as a language with an English vocabulary and an Oceanic grammar and phonology.


History

During the period of "
blackbirding Blackbirding was the trade in indentured labourers from the Pacific in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is often described as a form of slavery, despite the British Slavery Abolition Act 1833 banning slavery throughout the British Empire, ...
" in the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of thousands of Pacific islanders (many of them from the New Hebrides – now the
Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...
archipelago) were taken as indentured labourers, often kidnapped, and forced to work on plantations, mainly in Queensland, Australia, and
Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...
. With several languages being spoken in these plantations a localised
pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
was formed, combining English vocabulary with grammatical structures typical of languages in the region. This early plantation pidgin is the origin not only of Bislama, but also of
Tok Pisin Tok Pisin ( ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh ; ), often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin, is an English-based creole languages, English creole language spoken throughou ...
in
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...
, and Pijin of the
Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...
; though not of
Torres Strait Creole Torres Strait Creole (), also known as Torres Strait Pidgin, Brokan/Broken, Cape York Creole, Lockhart Creole, Kriol, Papuan, Broken English, Blaikman, Big Thap, Pizin, and Ailan Tok, is an English-based creole language (a variety of Pidgin ...
in the north of Australia. This creole started spreading throughout the Vanuatu archipelago at the turn of the 20th century, as former blackbirds and their descendants began to return to their native islands. Knowledge of this creole would facilitate communication not only with European traders and settlers, but also between native populations, and because Vanuatu is the most language-dense country in the world (one count puts it at 113 languages for a population of 225,000), Bislama usefully serves as a
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
for communication between ni-Vanuatu, as well as with and between foreigners. Although it has been primarily a spoken-only language for most of its history, the first dictionary of Bislama was published in 1977. A new dictionary was published in 1995. This, along with its second edition in 2004, has helped to create a standardised and uniform spelling of written Bislama. Besides Bislama, most ni-Vanuatu also know their local language, the local language of their father and/or mother, as well as their spouse, oftentimes. The country's official languages of tuition in schools and educational institutions are English and French.


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 Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class (biology), class Holothuroidea ( ). They are benthic marine animals found on the sea floor worldwide, and the number of known holothuroid species worldwide is about 1,786, with the greatest number be ...
, which itself comes from an alteration of the Portuguese "sea animal". In the early 1840s, sea cucumbers were also harvested and dried at the same time that
sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods. Sanda ...
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.
Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll ...
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''." In
Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...
'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 cucumbers, as a new re-borrowing from pseudo-French ''bêche de mer'', which has taken the form ''besdemea'', has become more popular.


Dialectal variations

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 one might hear 'ordinateur'.


Pacific creole comparison


Orthography

The Bislama Latin alphabet uses the letters ''A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y'' and the digraphs ''AE'', ''AO'' and '' NG''. An older Latin orthography, used before 1995, had ''É'' (now written ''E''), ''AI'' and ''AU'' (now ''AE'' and ''AO''). For those vowels in hiatus, ''AÏ'' and ''AÜ'' were used (now written ''AI'' and ''AU''). Labialized consonants (used in loanwords), now written with a tilde (''M̃'' and ''P̃'') or a following ''W'' (''MW'' and ''PW''), were then spelled with a macron, following the conventions used for some vernacular Vanuatu languages: ''M̄'' was used for and ''P̄'' for . On the island of
Pentecost Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christianity, Christian holiday which takes place on the 49th day (50th day when inclusive counting is used) after Easter Day, Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spiri ...
, the avoiuli script is sometimes used for Bislama. The shapes of the letters derive from sand-drawing. It has distinct letters for ''NG'' and ''NGG'', but otherwise corresponds closely to the Latin alphabet above, though capitals are seldom used, punctuation differs, there are digits for higher numbers and
logogram In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...
s for commonly traded commodities such as pig tusks.


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 verb A transitive verb is a verb that entails one or more transitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' in ''Amadeus enjoys music''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in ''Beatrice arose ...
s add to this a transitive suffix. The form of that suffix is /-em/, /-im/, or /-um/, depending on
vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...
. If the last vowel of the verb's stem is either -u- or -i-, then that vowel will normally be copied into the transitive suffix – however, there are rare exceptions. For all other stem vowels, the transitive suffix has its default form /-em/: Exceptions exist, such as ''lukim'' ("look"). Examples of transitive verbs which exceptionally ''don't'' take this suffix include: ''kakae'' 'eat, bite'; ''trink'' 'drink'; ''save'' 'know'; ''se'' 'say'. 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. For example, ''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 pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it''). Personal pronouns may also take different f ...
s of Bislama closely resemble those of
Tok Pisin Tok Pisin ( ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh ; ), often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin, is an English-based creole languages, English creole language spoken throughou ...
. They feature four grammatical numbers (singular, dual, trial and plural) and also encode the clusivity distinction: 1st person non-singular pronouns (equivalent of English ''we'') are described as ''inclusive'' if they include the addressee (i.e. , ), but ''exclusive'' otherwise (i.e. ). Bislama pronouns do not decline. The third person singular ''hem'', also written ''em'' lacks gender distinction, so it can mean either he, she or it. The predicate marker i – a particle which is placed before the verbal phrase of a sentence – is sometimes merged with the third person pronoun, giving the words hemi and emi, respectively, in singular, and oli in plural.


Tense/aspect/mood markers

*stap + V : ( progressive) ongoing or habitual action *;hem i stap kukum kumala: or: :;hemi stap kukum kumala: he/she is cooking sweet potatoes *bin + V :
past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
(with implication that the state is no longer true) *;hem i bin sik long fiva: she was sick with fever ut 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 A conditional sentence is a sentence in a natural language that expresses that one thing is contingent on another, e.g., "If it rains, the picnic will be cancelled." They are so called because the impact of the sentence’s main clause is ''con ...
) *;bae mi go long Santo: I will go to 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 *;: we just woke up *In a future context, ''jes'' entails a delay, rendered in English 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 *;hem i 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 ;: if we find a pig, we'll kill it


Sample texts and media


The Bible

The longest written work in Bislama is the
Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
completed in 1998.


Yumi, Yumi, Yumi


Further reading

* * * . * * * * *


References


External links


Bislama Wikipedia

Bislama.org
a portal of resources about the Bislama language.
Bislama Translator & Spelling Dictionary for Microsoft Word
English – Bislama online translator and MS Word dictionary
Vanuatu Daily Post
– news in English and Bislama

, from an
Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...
website
Peace Corps in Vanuatu – Bislama Language Lessons


''Preabuk long Bislama''
Book of Mormon in Bislama
* Paradisec has a number of collections that includ
recordings of Bislama language
{{Authority control English-based pidgins and creoles Articles containing video clips Languages of Vanuatu Languages of New Caledonia Bislama words and phrases