Phonemic contrasts in “Standard Rural Tok Pisin”

The phoneme inventory of Tok Pisin is somewhat reduced compared with its principal lexifier, English. There are some 24 phonemes in the core phonology, with no evidence of lexical tone. The following account is based on two standard accounts of Tok Pisin phonology, Mihalic (1971) and Laycock (1985), the latter also drawing on Laycock (1970). Mihalic based his phonology and grammar on the Tok Pisin spoken around Madang in north-east New Guinea, while Laycock’s Tok Pisin materials are more wide-ranging, but mainly draw on data from the Sepik and Bougainville areas. Laycock also refers to a paper by Litteral (1970) as the most comprehensive account yet of the Tok Pisin phonological system, but unfortunately this has not been published. Comments about variation as noted by these writers, and also based on some regional data from Smith (2002), will be made as appropriate. A fuller discussion of the relationship between Tok Pisin and English will follow.