![]() Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in an account of his travels through the Pacific in 18, "the natives themselves have often scraped up a little English . 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. In the early 1840s, sea cucumbers were also harvested and dried at the same time that sandalwood was gathered. 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, which itself comes from an alteration of the Portuguese "bicho do mar". The country's official languages of tuition in schools and educational institutions are English and French. This, along with its second edition in 2004, has helped to create a standardised and uniform spelling of written Bislama.īesides Bislama, most ni-Vanuatu also know their local language, the local language of their father and/or mother, as well as their spouse, oftentimes. Although it has been primarily a spoken-only language for most of its history, the first dictionary of Bislama was published in 1995. 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 for communication between ni-Vanuatu, as well as with and between foreigners. ![]() 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. This early plantation pidgin is the origin not only of Bislama, but also of Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea, and Pijin of the Solomon Islands though not of Torres Strait Creole in the north of Australia. With several languages being spoken in these plantations a localised pidgin was formed, combining English vocabulary with grammatical structures typical of languages in the region. ĭuring the period of " blackbirding" in the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of thousands of Pacific islanders (many of them from the New Hebrides – now the Vanuatu archipelago) were taken as indentured labourers, often kidnapped, and forced to work on plantations, mainly in Queensland, Australia, and Fiji. As such, Bislama can be described simply as a language with an English vocabulary and an Oceanic grammar and phonology. While the influence of these vernacular languages is low on the vocabulary side, it is very high in the morphosyntax. 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 though these are essentially limited to flora and fauna terminology. ![]() The lyrics of " Yumi, Yumi, Yumi", the country's national anthem, are composed in Bislama. It is the first language of many of the "Urban ni-Vanuatu" (citizens who live in Port Vila and Luganville) and the second language of much of the rest of the country's residents. Bislama ( English: / ˈ b ɪ s l ə m ɑː/ Bislama: also known by its earlier French name, bichelamar ) is an English-based creole language and one of the official languages of Vanuatu. ![]()
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