Symbols
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Tok Pisin alphabet
The 22 letters of standard Tok Pisin spelling in alphabetical order. No accents; ng is written as two letters, and c, q, x, z appear only in names and English words. CLDR omits v, but standard spelling uses it (givim, save, gavman).
Quotation marks
Tok Pisin follows English punctuation: double quotes outside, single inside.
Where it's spoken
Papua New Guinea, where Tok Pisin is the shared language of the nation. The kina has no sign of its own and is written K, as in K20.
Tok and pisin
Tok is talk; pisin is pidgin and, in Tok Pisin, also the word for bird.
On the map
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The Tok Pisin alphabet: plain letters, spelled by sound
Tok Pisin is written in the Latin alphabet with a spelling that follows the sounds, not English. The standard spelling, the one of Father Frank Mihalic's dictionary and of the Bible and the press, needs 22 letters: A B D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y. There are no accented letters and no special characters. Unicode's CLDR lists 21 of them; it leaves out v, but the standard spelling writes it in everyday words such as givim (to give), save (to know) and gavman (government), so it is in the grid here. C, q, x and z appear only in names and in English words written the English way.
Spelled by sound, many English words look new on paper: haus (house), taim (time), pis (fish), sip (ship), sios (church), skul (school) and balus (aeroplane, originally a word for a pigeon). Tok Pisin has no separate sh or ch sound in its spelling, which is why fish and ship lose their h. Each vowel has one steady value, close to the vowels of Spanish or Italian, and there are no silent letters.
Diphthongs are written ai, au and oi: kaikai (food, to eat), haus, boi. In singsing (a festival of song and dance) and long (in, at, to), ng is one sound, as in English singer; in pinga (finger), ng can represent two sounds.
How to type Tok Pisin and its punctuation
Nothing special is needed to type Tok Pisin: every letter is on a standard keyboard and on every phone, and an English keyboard layout is all you need. Punctuation follows English, with “double quotation marks” outside and ‘single ones’ inside; a phone usually turns the straight " and ' into the curly “ ” ‘ ’ by itself. On Windows the Alt codes are Alt0147 for “, Alt0148 for ”, Alt0145 for ‘ and Alt0146 for ’; on a Mac they are Option[ and OptionShift[ for the double pair, Option] and OptionShift] for the single pair.
Older texts and some writers spell Tok Pisin more like English, and the same word can turn up as tenkyu or tenk yu, gutpela or gutfela. The dictionary spelling keeps one word looking the same everywhere, which helps readers, search and spell checking alike.
The kina, Papua New Guinea's currency, has no Unicode sign of its own: prices are written with a capital K before the amount, as in K20, and the toea, a hundredth of a kina, with t.
Common Tok Pisin phrases and how the grammar works
Everyday Tok Pisin greetings are easy to copy: Moning! or Gutpela moning (good morning), Apinun (good afternoon), Gut nait (good night), Yu stap gut? (are you well?) and the answer Mi stap gut (I'm fine), Tenkyu tru or Tenkyu tumas (thank you very much) and Lukim yu (see you). Mi laikim yu tru is I love you, and Mi no save means I don't know.
Most of the vocabulary comes from English, but the grammar is Melanesian. Bilong marks belonging: haus bilong mi (my house), nem bilong yu (your name). Ol before a noun makes it plural: ol pikinini, the children. Verbs that take an object end in -im: lukim (to see someone), givim (to give something). Adjectives and some pronouns carry -pela: bikpela haus (a big house), mipela (we). Bai before a verb points to the future, pinis after it says the action is done: mi kaikai pinis, I have eaten.
Like the local languages around it, Tok Pisin has two words for we: yumi includes the person you speak to, mipela leaves them out. And wantok, from one talk, is someone who speaks your home language, and by extension a relative, friend or ally; the bond between wantoks is a key idea of PNG life.
Where Tok Pisin is spoken and what the name means
Tok Pisin is spoken across Papua New Guinea, from the towns of Port Moresby, Lae and Mount Hagen to the islands and the highland valleys. Unicode's CLDR estimates about 7.1 million speakers, most of the country. PNG has more than 800 languages, and Tok Pisin is the one people from different places share; in the towns many children now grow up with it as their first language. With English, Hiri Motu and PNG Sign Language it is an official language, and much of the debate in Parliament is held in it.
The name means pidgin talk: tok is talk and pisin is pidgin. By a happy coincidence pisin is also the Tok Pisin word for bird , from English pigeon. The language grew out of the Pacific pidgin English of nineteenth-century traders and plantations, then settled into its own shape in German New Guinea, which is why it holds words from the Tolai language of the Rabaul area and a few from German, such as rausim (to throw out, from raus), alongside save and pikinini, which are usually traced back to Portuguese words picked up in the old maritime trade.
Tok Pisin's closest relatives are Bislama in Vanuatu and Pijin in the Solomon Islands; all three grew from the same Pacific pidgin, and speakers can follow a good deal of each other's language (bilong is blong in Bislama). For the other official languages see Hiri Motu and English, and for the flag , the bird of paradise, the kundu drum and the rest of the country's emoji see Papua New Guinea.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyTok Pisin Alphabet & Phrases combos
13Worth knowing
- Pisin means both pidgin and bird in Tok Pisin, so the name of the language can be read as bird talk .
- Tok Pisin needs no accented letters at all: 22 plain Latin letters write every ordinary word, and c, q, x and z are not among them.
- Wantok, from one talk, means someone who speaks your home language; in a country of more than 800 languages it became the word for the network of kin and friends people rely on, and Wantok is also the name of a weekly newspaper in Tok Pisin.
- Save, to know, is usually traced to the Portuguese saber, picked up through the old maritime pidgins, the same root as English savvy.
- The often-quoted mikmasta bilong Jisas Krais for helicopter is a joke told about the language; Papua New Guineans simply say helikopta.
Questions people ask
8What is Tok Pisin?
An English-based creole and the most widely spoken language of Papua New Guinea, official there alongside English, Hiri Motu and PNG Sign Language. Unicode's CLDR estimates about 7.1 million speakers.
What does Tok Pisin mean?
Pidgin talk: tok is talk and pisin is pidgin. Pisin is also the Tok Pisin word for bird.
Does Tok Pisin use accents or special letters?
No. The standard spelling uses 22 plain letters, A B D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y, with ng for the sound in singer and ai, au, oi for diphthongs.
How to say hello in Tok Pisin?
Halo! In the morning say Moning or Gutpela moning, in the afternoon Apinun; to ask how someone is, Yu stap gut?, and the answer is Mi stap gut.
How to say thank you in Tok Pisin?
Tenkyu, or Tenkyu tru and Tenkyu tumas for thank you very much.
How to say I love you in Tok Pisin?
Mi laikim yu, or Mi laikim yu tru to say it strongly.
How to say happy birthday in Tok Pisin?
Hepi betde!
What is the Tok Pisin word for helicopter?
Helikopta. The famous mikmasta bilong Jisas Krais is a joke made up about the language, not what speakers say.
