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Tok Pisin is a pidgin/creole language spoken since the late 19th century in most of the area that nowadays constitutes Papua New Guinea where it emerged under German colonial rule. Unusual for a pidgin/creole, Tok Pisin is characterized by a extensive lexicographic history. The Tok Pisin Dictionary Collection at the Leibniz Institute for the German Language, described in this article, includes about fifty dictionaries. The collection forms the basis for the sketch of the history of Tok Pisin lexicography as part of colonial history presented here. The basic thesis is that in the history of Tok Pisin, lexicographic strat egies, dictionary structures, and publication patterns reflect the interest (and disinterest) of various groups of colonial actors. Among these colonial actors, European scientists, Catholic missionaries, and the Australian and US militaries played important roles.
Tok Pisin is a pidgin/creole language spoken since the late 19th century in most of the area that nowadays constitutes Papua New Guinea where it emerged under German colonial rule. Unusual for a pidgin/creole, Tok Pisin is characterized by a extensive lexicographic history. The Tok Pisin Dictionary Collection at the Leibniz Institute for the German Language, described in this article, includes about fifty dictionaries. The collection forms the basis for the sketch of the history of Tok Pisin lexicography as part of colonial history presented here. The basic thesis is that in the history of Tok Pisin, lexicographic strategies, dictionary structures, and publication patterns reflect the interest (and disinterest) of various groups of colonial actors. Among these colonial actors, European scientists, Catholic missionaries, and the Australian and US militaries played important roles.
Between 1884 and 1900, Germany established protectorates in large areas of the South Pacific. The authorities assumed that the linguistically extremely diverse areas would pose communication problems. Thus the question arose whether German should become the lingua franca in the South Pacific. After a controversial discussion; the German government implemented language policies to promote the German language in the colonies. This chapter shows why, on the one hand, German language policies were doomed to failure and why, on the other, they unintentionally supported other linguistic developments such as the introduction of borrowing from German into indigenous languages, the development of German settler varieties, and the spread of pidgin languages.
German loanwords are found in many languages in the South Pacific, in particular in those areas which were under German administration before WW I. The Austronesian languages in this area differ greatly with respect to the number of lexemes of German origin. The paper focuses on two languages of Micronesia, namely Palauan, with a comparatively high number of German loans, and Kosraean which had no German influence on its lexicon. The paperconsiders the balance of factors that contribute to the different loanword amounts. That German was taught in local schools for up to two decades did not, by itself, enhance borrowing from German. More weighty factors for the amount of borrowings from German are the length and strength of language contact with English and the use of German as a means of communication in particular settings in the years before WW I.