How do you say “bird” or “parrot” or “Eclectus” in local languages?
In Tok Pisin (“Talk Pidgin” or “Pidgin English”) the locals usually do not discriminate between species of animals, and normally they call all birds ‘pisin’. The word ‘pisin’ in Tok Pisin is from the English word “pidgin”. Of course, “pidgin” is a formal linguistic term referring to “a language with a markedly reduced grammatical structure, lexicon, and stylistic range, compared with other languages, and which is the native language of no one” (David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 1985 ff). They also use the term ‘pisin’ (derived from English ‘pigeon’) as a general term for all birds. Since the pronunciation of the two is very similar, there is no difference in the Tok Pisin spelling. Actually Tok Pisin is now becoming the native language of quite a few people where vernaculars are dying out and English is the prestige language for them. Since Tok Pisin is more like English than anything else, knowing it helps one learn English easier in school. On the island where
