by markweatherill 8 Replies latest social humour
I just discovered this translation into 'Hawai'i Pidgin' and for some reason found it very amusing.
They even dubbed the Caleb and Sophia cartoons into this dialect.
Not because I look down on Pidgin speakers in any way, more about the way translations like this are revealing and telling in unintended ways.
Armageddon in Pidgin English = Big Buggerup!
Let me guess. A million dollar translating office for a few hundred speakers who use it only for tourists.
How about a run down tenement for ghetto speakers? More of them.
I had a subscription to the Solomon Islands Pidgin Watchtower way back in the Eighties. As kids we had great fun with it.
I remember some people from New Guinea coming to the church I was attending in 80s. They taught us "Rejoice in the Lord always" in Pidgin.
"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice" became "Hamamas* oltime long bikpela, hamamas oltime long em", IIRC.
* Stoopid autocorrect tried to make this "Hamas" 🙄
If English is your first language, the Papua New Guinea "Tok Pisin" language is not too difficult to pick up.
For example, a roadside sign at one of PNG Power's hydroelectric power stations reads:
LUKAUTIM GUT: ("Look-outim Good" i.e. Pay Attention)
Draiv isi ("Drive easy" - used in this context, "easy" means to drive both slowly and carefully)
Rot bilong man-wokabaut ("Rot" = Road, and "man-wokabaut" i.e. man-walkabout = pedestrian)
What the last sentence is saying is that, within the plant, pedestrians have right of way.
(It must be said, though, that Pidgin is not "baby-talk or similar; it is a language in its own right, and grammatical errors are quite possible - just like in any other language)
I spent 8 months in Port Moresby Bethel in the 80’s.
Was an interesting experience but was pleased to get back home again.
Bribie,
You have a PM
