Tok Pisin-Reconnecting Australia with its Pacific Neighbours

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A central theme of veteran Pacific journalist Sean Dorney's 2016 book, "The Embarrassed Colonialist", is that for moral and practical reasons, Australia needs to reconnect with Papua New Guinea (PNG). If this aim is to be realised, Australians' woeful lack of understanding of its nearest neighbour needs to be addressed by practical means. At present, it could be argued that Australians' understanding of PNG extends no further than knowing it is where they must go to fulfill a life-long ambition to walk the Kokoda Track or a mistaken belief that PNG highlands tribes are constantly at war with each other.

The Australian National University (ANU) has recently recognised that a solid grounding in one of PNG's four official languages, Tok Pisin, is an excellent starting point in promoting Australians' understanding of PNG. ANU's School of Culture, History and Language now includes Tok Pisin as one of 14 regional languages offered in both short and degree-length courses. ANU's overview of this undergraduate course in Tok Pisin, also known as "Pidgin" and "Neo-Melanesian", states that, "....students will gain a deeper understanding of the deep cultures, histories and societies of the people of PNG and surrounding areas of the Pacific". 

Tok Pisin developed in the late 1800s amongst indentured labourers, many from the Bismarck Arichipelago in German New Guinea, when they were sent to work on plantations in Queensland and Samoa. Because they spoke distinctly different languages, these labourers developed a pidgin, drawing vocabulary mainly from English, but including random words from German, Malay, Samoan and their own Austronesian languages. The English-based pidgin that evolved in German New Guinea became a widely-used lingua franca, and a language of interaction between the labourers and their overseers, and among the labourers themselves, eventually spreading across most of what is now PNG. 

As noted in ANU's course overview, proficiency in Tok Pisin provides an introduction to areas of the Pacific adjacent to PNG. Tok Pisin and the closely related Bislama in Vanuatu and Pijin in Solomon Islands developed in parallel with each other. An English-based pidgin, "Bichelamar", originating from New South Wales or the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), also developed in the New Caledonian archipelago from about 1840, but was replaced by a French-based pidgin by about 1875-1880. 

In the North Pacific, Micronesian Pidgin was an English-based pidgin spoken in the Caroline Islands, Marshall Islands, Marianas Islands, Gilbert Islands and Nauru from about 1860 to the early 1900s, by which time the area was under Germany's control. Now it survives as a spoken language only on Nauru as Nauruan Pidgin, a product of China Coast Pidgin English brought in by Chinese phosphate labourers, with Melanesian Tok Pisin and Solomon Islands Pijin influences. 

Australia's connection with PNG and the surrounding areas of the Pacific is fostered by the Australian Broadcasting Commission's (ABC) "Wantok" program, broadcast in Tok Pisin, Pijin and Bislama on Radio Australia. The Wantok Program is thirty minutes of news and current affairs broadcast twice a day, Monday to Friday. Depending on the location of the listener, ABC Radio Australia programs can be heard live via Internet streaming, on-demand audio and podcast downloads through 24-hour FM radio stations and local relay stations, or by live satellite. 

For 70 years until 31/1/2017, ABC Radio Australia used shortwave radio to broadcast programmes, primarily to the Asia-Pacific. Programmes were broadcast in multiple languages, including Tok Pisin.  ABC management's reasons for the termination of the shortwave radio service in early 2017 were that shortwave technology was outdated and that the estimated AUD1.9 million it would save by cutting the service would be reinvested in expanding content and services. 

This short-sighted decision by ABC's management to cease shortwave radio broadcasts has deprived people in remote areas of the Pacific of a trusted news source in languages they fully comprehend. The people in these areas have limited or no access to the Internet and are unable to receive limited-range FM radio transmissions. Unsurprisingly, China's state-owned broadcaster now uses Radio Australia's old radio frequencies, broadcasting its own English-language news services across the Pacific. In sporting terms, Australia has kicked a spectacular "own goal" in its competition with China for influence in the Asia-Pacific Region.