While preparing the country for self-government and independence, Australia was to advance the general well-being of Papua New Guineans, for instance in the sectors of health, education and agriculture. The focus here is on education, particularly on the changes that took place with respect to linguistic issues.
In the early 1950s, a major task was to ensure that all children in primary schools learned English. When the United Nations Organisation prompted Australia in 1953 to put an end to the use of Tok Pisin as a medium of instruction because it was considered to be inappropriate, efforts to extend the use of English increased. The desire to relinquish Tok Pisin was shared by expatriates and Europeans alike. They regarded it as a corrupted form of English, restricted in its linguistic capacities. It was also said “to constitute a bad heritage from the days of colonialism” (Wurm, 1985a: 70). The indigenous population appears to have been divided on this issue.
Some people were sure that only fluency in English would provide them with a lucrative job. Having only just realised that Tok Pisin was not actually the white man’s language, they felt cheated and refused to send their children to non-English schools (Romaine, 1992a: 53f.). Others found Tok Pisin to be the language that enabled them not only to communicate with authorities and Europeans, but also with fellow countrymen from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Wurm, 1985a:
71). By giving financial aid to those mission schools that taught in English, the government initially further advanced its anti Tok Pisin policy. Many of the churches nevertheless used to Tok Pisin or continued to teach in the vernaculars. Thus, the
overall number of Tok Pisin speakers grew rapidly. Since the numerous churches varied considerably in their oral and written systems,32 as did the evolving news media and government departments, the need for a standardised orthography became vital.
The Minister for Territories in Canberra must have realised that it was unrealistic to attempt to “control the use of a fully nativised lingua franca whose primary function was to serve as a means of intercommunication among the indigenous population”
(Wurm, 1985a: 67). He therefore conceded in 1955 that Tok Pisin could be used restrictedly for instruction in areas where it was commonly spoken. When the Department of Education recommended the official use of Tok Pisin in the entire country, the orthography proposed by Hall33 served as the basis for further adaptations, which were to reflect the pronunciation of indigenous speakers in the Madang area. The system was approved and officially acknowledged a year later, in 1956. This orthography was the foundation for Mihalic’s grammar and dictionary, which appeared – with a few minor changes – for the first time in 1957.34 It “has remained the uncontested standard dictionary” ever since (Smith, 2002: 4).
A growing political awareness and aspiration for autonomy began to develop in the 1960s. The first House of Assembly in 1964 contained indigenous members as well as expatriates. Although it adopted a motion declaring that, in order to advance Papua New Guinea, national unity was required, the topic of language was not an issue. The party led by the man who became the first Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, was the first to advocate independence and at least sanctioned the use of Tok Pisin for everyday communication (Romaine, 1992a:
15ff.). Unfortunately, the government was negligent in supervising the observance of the standard orthography. As a result, the numerous newspapers that originated in the 1960s35 – the bulk of which published in Tok Pisin – were all free to use their own
32 See the different versions of the Lord’s Prayer, given on p. 21 above.
33 According to Holm (2000: 42), Hall was “the first creolist with any extensive first-hand knowledge of a pidgin”.
34 For roughly 40 years, Mihalic’s grammar and dictionary, especially the 1971 edition, was considered to be the standard. An online project with the purpose of revising his work, open to contributions by anyone who can speak Tok Pisin, was launched in 2001. This ongoing project can be found at <http://www.mihalicdictionary.org/Index.htm>; 07 July 2005.
35 Romaine (1992a: 50) mentions Bougainville Nius, Toktok bilong Haus ov Assembli, Nius bilong Yumi, Nu Gini Toktok, Kundu and others.
way of spelling. Missions took matters more seriously and implemented the suggested norms. It cannot be deduced from the available documents which mission first published the Nupela Testamen (New Testament) in Tok Pisin,36 but its immense impact becomes obvious from the fact that 40,000 copies were sold within the first nine months alone. An Orthography Committee, set up in 1969, suggested that the spelling system of the Nupela Testamen be accepted as the official standard.
This was also used by the newspaper Wantok, which was founded by the Catholics and first appeared in 1970. Mihalic, whose grammar was mentioned above, was the founding editor of Wantok Niuspepa (Romaine, 1992a: 48ff.).
By 1973 Papua New Guinea had become self-governing, and in 1975 independence was achieved. What followed was an education plan devised for five years, suggesting that vernacular languages should be employed for basic education. Since the National Executive Council did not approve this, however, the colonial policy of English at all levels of formal education continued. When a survey conducted in the North Solomons Province at the end of the 1970s brought to light that many “parents were concerned about the social alienation of the youth, which they partially blamed on the English education system”, the government for the first time supported “the use of the vernacular for initial literacy and basic education” (Litteral,
<http://www.sil.org/silewp/1999/002/SILEWP1999-002.html>; 05 Oct. 2005).
From the 1980s onwards, vernacular preparatory schools emerged in other provinces as well. In 1986 a document recommending that education become more focused on aspects concerning PNG was accepted by Parliament, but it took another three years before it also officially acknowledged efforts to further literacy37 and language awareness activities. The 1989 National Language and Literacy Policy adopted by the National Department of Education basically endorsed initial literacy to take place in the tok ples, i.e. a community language, proceeding to one of the official languages, meaning either Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu or English. It was up to the
36 In Smith (2002: 116) we find The Bible Society of Papua New Guinea and the year 1966.
Mühlhäusler (1985b: 106) gives the date 1969 but does not specify which mission, and Wurm (1985b: 172f.) names the Lutherans as the first mission to publish the Nupela Testamen in 1968.
37 Incidentally, the proportion of literacy for adults is highest amongst those who speak Tok Pisin, which is due to the quantity of available material in this language (cf. Litteral,
<http://www.sil.org/silewp/1999/002/SILEWP1999-002.html>; 05 Oct. 2005).
communities themselves to decide which language to begin with, and it is interesting to note that they frequently chose a lingua franca instead of the vernacular.
In the 1990s, this policy was extended to include not only literacy, but also education in the vernacular. There was a ‘restructuring reform’ in 1991, known as the
Table 3: The School System in PNG (Kale/Marimyas, 2003: 6)
At this time, emphasis was put on elementary education, including the training of teachers for this sector, terminating with the development of a special curriculum in 1995. Beginning at the age of six, children are taught in the language of their community. In the last half of Elementary 2, English is orally introduced. “Students continue with orality and literacy in the vernacular language into Grade 3 of the Lower Primary School” (Kale/Marimyas, 2003: 7). Grades 3-5 are bridging classes, which means that English is gradually introduced, but the vernacular is maintained for specific purposes. Instruction from then onwards continues in English. The idea of wanting to provide initial education in a vernacular children actually speak is commendable, but unrealistic in a country with approximately 800 languages.
The logistics of the preparation of teachers so that each language group will be catered for clearly underestimates the enormity of the task proposed. […] [M]any children in PNG leave school functionally illiterate. This fact is not contestable. However, it does not necessarily follow that the extent of illiteracy can be attributed to the fact that education is largely presented in a foreign language. It can just as equally be argued that it is because many of the teachers possess a poor command of English and are poor pedagogical performers.
(O’Donoghue, 1994: 208).
The poor quality of teaching, school fees and the distance to school are, amongst others, named as factors contributing to the retention rate of less than 65% for 1991 (Avalos, 1992: 310f.). A further aim of the Educational Sector Review was therefore to ensure that, by 2004, all children would be able to attend an elementary school as close to their home as possible.
Secondary education has apparently always been the more problematic sector.
Within ten years of independence, the number of secondary schools had nearly doubled. Nevertheless, high schools were unable to provide a place for two thirds of the pupils who had completed grade 6, and there is still too little capacity for those wishing to continue their education today. As a consequence, many young people are not qualified enough for the demanding jobs in the cities, but are also too reluctant to return to village life, so they join criminal gangs (the Tok Pisin word is raskol
‘rascal’) (cf. Romaine, 1992a: 69ff.).
In the decade following independence, emphasis was also put on the tertiary sector.
This was done so that, later on, the country’s own educated elite would replace expatriates.
On the whole, the government is finding itself unable to meet the growing demand of education and employment expectation. Tok Pisin is currently seen as both a stabilising and a destabilising factor. It is the popular and widely accepted lingua franca, enabling speakers of different mother tongues to communicate. The destabilising nature manifests itself in the decline in traditional values and vernaculars, which is seen as a by-product of Tok Pisin’s growing influence. But although for many years Tok Pisin was thought of as the resource that would pave the way into modern society, meanwhile the importance of English has become considerably more pronounced; this is boosted by the fact that English is still the main language of education (cf. ibid.: 82ff.).
Today, Papua New Guinea is a country repeatedly referred to as the linguistically most complex or diverse area in the world (cf. Foley, 1986: 3, Romaine, 1992a: vii and Kulick, 1997: 1). Estimates concerning the number of indigenous languages spoken there vary from around 700-750 (Romaine in McArthur, 1992: 747) to approximately 860 (Holm, 2000: 96). English, Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu are the three official languages38 recognised by the constitution at present, and according to Smith (2002: 21) “[t]he inclusion of Hiri Motu, with a rather smaller number of speakers and more restricted range than the other national languages, was no doubt a conciliatory move at the time of independence in the face of political pressures for Papua to become a separate nation”. Hiri Motu, a “pidginized form of the Austronesian vernacular Motu”, is mainly spoken in the ex-British Territory of
38 There is disagreement regarding the status of Tok Pisin as an official or national language in the literature: Romaine (1992a: 231f.) speaks of Tok Pisin being only an official, not a national language, whereas Smith (2002: 21) bases the national status of Tok Pisin on the constitution.
Kaplan/Baldauf (2003: 188) state that Tok Pisin in fact does not have official status. For Verhaar (1995: 1), Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu are the “national languages of the nation”, while English “is not a national language but, rather, the “official” language”. Part of the controversy may result from the terms’ undifferentiated usage in the literature. For a detailed discussion dealing with the distinction official vs. national, see Eastman (2001). I will follow Romaine in McArthur (1992: 1044), who declares that there “has been considerable discussion as to whether it [Tok Pisin] should become the national language of PNG. Currently, it has official status with English and another pidgin, Hiri Motu […]”.
Papua (Smith, 2002: 10). While the spread and significance of Tok Pisin is increasing, that of Hiri Motu is continually declining (ibid.: 21). Tok Pisin has, however, undergone considerable transformations over the past 30 years. These changes, which affect all aspects of language and the lexicon in particular, are mainly due to the continuing anglicisation. Examples and evidence for this claim are provided in the present study, specifically in chapter 4, the analysis of the corpus.