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NATLANG: interestin' story with Tok Pisin elements

From:J Y S Czhang <czhang23@...>
Date:Thursday, October 18, 2001, 21:52
    Yesterday I came across a short sci-fi story by Alan Dean Foster titled
_Pein Bek Longpela Telimpon_ (1999) [in the anthology _Future Crimes_ edited
by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers, DAW Books/Penguin Putnam, 1999].
    Other than the title of the story, Foster uses very small, scanty
snippets of Tok Pisin to add detail/atmosphere to the story (makes ya
seriously wish for more... like perhaps a novel with much more Tok Pisin
elements --- "He [Foster] has traveled extensively around the world, from
Australia to Papua New Guinea.").

    The story is - as described by the editors - "a deadly culture clash"
between everyday Papua New Guineans and criminal "whites" (Europeans,
Americans, Australians) set in Port Moresby, PNG/Mosbi Papua NiuGini. The
idea of a near-future culture clash between native Papuan cultures and
"white" technoculture is a very intriguing theme that could be much developed
IMHO (Again, makes ya wish for more, novel-length).

    Funny, highly insightful excerpt (OBNATLANG note):

    "... To Wahgi [a Huli Highlander character in the story] it sounded like
American English, not Aussie or British, but he could not be certain.
Sometimes it seemed to him that there were as many varieties of English as
there were languages in Papua New Guinea."

    czHANg  v e r y  s l o w l y  workin' * on his pidgin-creole artlang
_Tr:pang_

* literally usin' index cards and a shoebox-sized box