Word for the Travel Wise (09/27/06)

If all the words in the Pidgin language are repetitive like the two I've presented thus far I'd have to vote it as the easiest and most fun language to learn. However, all the words are not like this, but it still seems to be fairly simple to catch onto.

Today's word is a Pidgin (Tok Pisin) word used in Papua New Guinea:

kaikai - food

As noted in Wikipedia the word 'tok' means word or speech and the word 'pisin' means pidgin and is a Creole language spoken by about 4 million people as a second language and over a hundred thousand as a first. It is spoken in the northern mainland of Papua New Guinea. If you scroll down further you'll find a nice list of words and some pronunciation examples. As an added bonus you can learn even more words by venturing into the online Tok Pisin phrasebook, also provided by Wiki. They've actually got a great handful of links which I suggest going through them all if you're really into learning this lang. One last site I'll note here though is Robert Eklund's Tok Pisin page. It had pictures of signs, people and some audio clips. Looks a winner to learning the very basics.

Past Pidgin (Tok Pisin) words: natnat

Filed under: Learning, Oceania, Papua New Guinea, Foreign Language