Lexicon

Although the lexicon of Bislama is predominantly English in origin, there is nevertheless a substantial minority of words which derive from other sources (compare Crowley 1995 for a fairly comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary of Bislama). About 3.75% of the total number of entries in the Bislama lexicon derive from local vernacular sources (e.g. /nakamal/ ‘meeting house’, /nawita/ ‘octopus’, /nawimba/ ‘Pacific pigeon’), while between 6% and 12% derive from French (e.g. /masut/ ‘diesel’ < mazout, /pamplimus/ ‘grapefruit’ < pamplemousse), and about 0.25% of the lexicon derives from a variety of other sources (e.g. /pikinini/ ‘child’ < Portuguese pequenho ‘small’ via South Seas Jargon, /burau/ ‘Hibiscus tiliaceus’ < Tahitian  , /nalnal/ ‘club’ < Early Australian Aboriginal Pidgin nalanala). The range 6–12% for words of French origin rather than a fixed figure is because the forms of a substantial number of words are ambiguous betweeen an English and a French origin, e.g. /sigaret/ < cigarette, /plastik/ < English plastic or French plastique, /letrik/ < English electric or French électrique.

Melanesian etyma are most widely encountered in semantic fields for which neither English nor French provided terms which were readily accessible to Europeans in the early contact situation (or since). We therefore find a substantial number of names for local flora and fauna being expressed by means of words of local origin, e.g. /nakavika/ ‘Malay apple’, /nakatambol/ ‘dragon plum’, /naŋai/ ‘native almond’, /natora/ ‘island teak’, /nasiviru/ ‘coconut lory’, /natamap/ ‘castrated boar’. Terminology relating to Melanesian cultural practices and artefacts is also often expressed by words of local origin, e.g. /nakaimas/ ‘sorcerer’, /nakamal/ ‘meeting house’, /nimaŋgi/ ‘grade-taking ceremony’, /nasama/ ‘outrigger (of canoe)’, /laplap/ ‘type of food’. It should be noted that nouns of Melanesian origin are often, though by no means always, incorporated into Bislama with the widely distributed noun phrase marker proclitic (or prefix) /na-/ reanalyzed as an invariant part of the noun.

French etyma are distributed across a wider range of semantic fields, making it more difficult to predict what meanings are likely to be expressed by means of words of English origin and which will be expressed by words of French origin. Some words of French origin clearly relate in a variety of ways to the French colonial presence, either through administrative terminology such as /delege/ ‘French district agent’ < délégué, /lameri/ ‘town hall’ < la mairie, terminology associated with Catholicism such as /lames/ ‘mass’ < la messe, /per/ ‘priest’ < père, or terminology associated with fine cuisine and restaurant dining such as /lai/ ‘garlic’ < l’ail, /pima/ ‘chilli’ < piment, /susut/ ‘choko’ < chouchoutte, /gato/ ‘cake’ < gateau. It will be noted once again that nouns from French are often incorporated into Bislama with the preposed definite article le or la attached as an inseparable part of the noun itself as /le-/ or /la-/.

However, other meanings seem to be fairly unpredictably expressed by means of words of French or English origin. It is difficult, for example, to see why the children’s game of tag should be referred to in Bislama as /lelu/ (< French le loup) rather than by a word of English origin, or why some playing cards are referred to by words of French origin (e.g. /las/ ‘ace’ < l’ace, /pik/ ‘spades’ < pique) while others are referred to by means of English etyma (e.g. /daiman/ ‘diamonds’, /hat/ ‘hearts’). It should also be noted that there is a substantial number of synonymous pairs involving words of both English and French origin, e.g. /ariko/ (< French haricot) and /bin/ ‘bean’, /pistas/ (< French pistache) and /pinat/ ‘peanut’, /lapul/ (< French l’ampoule) and /glop/ ‘light globe’.

The bulk of the Bislama lexicon, however, is clearly of English origin. In some cases, either the form or the meaning of an English word, or both, has been substantially changed in Bislama (or the English form from which a Bislama word has been derived is now seldom used in modern English). We therefore find examples such as /purumbut/ ‘step on’ (< put ‘im foot), /kolta/ ‘bitumen’ (< coal tar), /giaman/ ‘tell lies’ (< nineteenth-century Australian English gammon), /solmit/ ‘promiscuous’ (< salt-meat).

In yet other cases, the English source of a Bislama form is immediately obvious, though the meaning may have been substantially modified, often under the direct influence of vernacular semantic patterns. Thus, Bislama /han/ comes from English hand, but it translates as both ‘arm’ and ‘hand’, following the widespread lack of separate terms for these meanings in vernaculars. In the same way, Bislama /lek/ (from English leg) covers the meaning of both ‘leg’ and ‘foot’ in English.

There is a substantial component of the lexicon involving words that are ultimately based on English lexical sources yet which have been compounded creatively by speakers of Bislama to express meanings without having to resort to direct lexical copying from English. During the Second World War, for example, when Ni-Vanuatu were first exposed to grenades through their association with American troups, they coined their own term for this, i.e. /hanbom/ < /han/ ‘hand/ arm’ + /bom/ ‘bomb’. The same pattern has been used for the more recent coinage /roketbom/ ‘missile’ < /roket/ ‘rocket’ + /bom/ ‘bomb’. Local flora and fauna also often came to be referred to by means of such compound terms, e.g. /blufis/ ‘parrotfish’ < /blu/ ‘blue’ + /fis/ ‘fish’, /retwut/ ‘Java cedar’ < /ret/ ‘red’ + /wut/ ‘wood’.