Bislama Bons Mots
Sunday, May 31st, 2009In Bislama’s most common usage, the laughing, chaffing repartee that punctuates our daily exchanges, it’s good-natured, inventive and cheeky, strikingly similar to the bawdy discourse in a Dublin pub on any given Friday.
My point – and I do have one – is that visitors ignore the nuance and linguistic flair inherent in Vanuatu discourse at their peril. No one can truly say they understand Bislama until they’ve grasped its vividly metaphorical, highly contextual fluidity and made it their own.
Pidgin Poetics
Saturday, March 7th, 2009Bislama is more than the sum of its words. People ignore this lesson at their peril. A poor Bislama speaker may be forgiven, but a poor listener suffers more than they know.
More than once, I’ve had to pull some well-meaning soul aside and explain that they can’t get another meeting with some functionary because they didn’t pay any attention to what they were told at the last one. Often enough, they’ll angrily retort that nothing important was said.
SMS From the Bislama
Friday, April 27th, 2007SMS from the Bislama GOODNIGHT TAWI SORRY TO DISTURB I WANT TO TELL YOU ONLY THAT EVERYTHING IS STRAIGHT With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning