Publications on Bislama



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This section includes works of a descriptive, comparative or sociolinguistic nature on Bislama, or works relating to Melanesian Pidgin more generally which include substantial treatment of Bislama. [The spelling Bichelamar occurs in many French references to the language.]


Anonymous n.d. Apprenons le bichlamar: petit lexique français-bichlamar de conversation courante. Vila: Imprimerie Hébridaise. *Issued by the French Residency in the 1970s, this is basically a guide to the language for French people dealing with "natives", with a fairly idiosyncratic spelling system.

Baker, Philip 1993. Australian influence on Melanesian Pidgin English. Te Reo 36:3-67. *A detailed historical account of the contribution made to Melanesian Pidgin (including Bislama) from Australian pidgins/creoles or varieties of English used in Australia. His claim is basically that Melanesian Pidgin English derives from Queensland Pidgin English, itself a continuation of New South Wales Pidgin English

Bowden, D.K.1986. Medical dictionary in Bislama, English and French. Melbourne: Monash University Publications Committee. *A dictionary aimed at ensuring "adequate communication between health worker and patient", this consists of a main section English-French-Bislama, French-English and Bislama-English indexes, a brief "comparative" section (English-Bislama-Tok Pisin-Solomons Pijin), and some useful phrases for health workers. xi + 398pp.

Camden, Pastor Bill.1977. A descriptive dictionary: Bislama to English. Vila: Maropa Bookshop. *The first major dictionary of Bislama, attractively set out and with plenty of examples, marred only by the fact that there is no English-Bislama index. xviii + 138pp.

Camden, Pastor Bill1979. Parallels in structure of lexicon and syntax between New Hebrides Bislama and the South Santo language as spoken at Tangoa. PL, A-57:51-117. *Provides a strong argument in support of the Oceanic substrate theory by outlining many syntactic parallels between Bislama and Tangoa.

Camden, Pastor BillF/c. The transitives using long in Bislama. In John Lynch & Fa'afo Pat (eds.), Oceanic studies: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics. Canberra: PL. *Examines a range of verbs in Bislama with, rather than (or as well as) taking the transitive suffix vowel + m, instead mark the object noun phrase with the preposition long. Camden shows that this usage is perhaps much more widespread than had been suspected.

Charpentier, Jean-Michel 1979. Le pidgin bislama(n) et le multilinguisme aux Nouvelles-Hébrides. Paris: SELAF [Langues et Civilisations á Tradition Orale 35]. *In two major parts: one dealing with the history and sociolinguistics of Bislama and its use in the public domain; the other a discussion of the origin of the different components of the lexicon. 416pp.

Churchill, William 1911. The jargon or trade speech of the Western Pacific. Washington: The Carnegie Institute. *A general account of pidgin languages with some reference to "Beach-la-Mar", not Bislama itself but an amalgam of Pacific pidgins.

Clark, Ross 1977. On the origin and usage of the term Beach-la-Mar. Te Reo 20:71-82. *Shows that the term Beach-la-Mar (now Bislama) probably derived from Portuguese bicho do mar "trepang, bêche-de-mer", was used in New Caledonia in the middle of the last century to denote the pidgin variety of English used there, and was borrowed into French as biche-la-mar and subsequently into English as Beach-la-mar.

Clark, Ross 1978. A further note on 'Beach-la-Mar'. Te Reo 21:83-85. *Cites a few additional, and earlier, sources in support of the arguments given in Clark 1977.

Clark, Ross 1979-80. In search of Beach-la-Mar: towards a history of Pacific Pidgin English. Te Reo 22/23:3-64. *A comparative-historical study of Pacific pidgins and creoles (including Bislama), with an attempt to show, in family-tree format, the degrees of relationship between them.

Clark, Ross 1983. Social contexts of early South Pacific pidgins. In E. Woolford & W. Washabaugh (eds.), The social context of creolization. Ann Arbor: Karoma; pp.10-27.

Clark, Ross 1987. Substratum and the phonology of early Melanesian Pidgin. In Norbert Boretzky, Werner Enninger & Thomas Stolz (eds.), Beiträge zum 3.Essener Kolloquium über Sprachwandel und seine bestimmenden Faktoren. Bochum: Studienverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer; pp.77-97.

Crowley, Terry 1987. Grama blong Bislama. Suva: Ekstensen Sevis, Yunivesiti blong Saot Pasifik. *The first full published grammar of Bislama, this is written in that language rather than in English. (Parenthetically, it includes some interesting attempts at creating a Bislama metalanguage). vi + 239pp.

Crowley, Terry 1989. Sources and structures in Melanesian Pidgin. [Review article of Roger Keesing's Melanesian Pidgin and the Oceanic substrate]. Multilingua 8,4:331-343. *Comments critically on Keesing's interpretation of material on South Seas Jargon in primary sources, arguing that he has probably exaggerated the appearance of modern features in earlier Melanesian Pidgin.

Crowley, Terry 1989. 'Say', 'c'est' and subordinate constructions in Melanesian Pidgin. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 4,2:185-210. *A comparative-historical analysis of the complementiser se, looking at other functions it is acquiring, and examining possible syntactic-semantic "reinforcement" from English say and French c'est.

Crowley, Terry 1989. Referential and expressive expansion in Bislama. English World-Wide 10,1:85-118. *A historical treatment of the expansion of Bislama vocabulary, relating stylistic developments to the development of a national identity and culture in Vanuatu.

Crowley, Terry 1990. Beach-la-Mar to Bislama: The emergence of a national language in Vanuatu. Oxford: Clarendon Press [Oxford Studies in Language Contact]. *A major contribution to the history and development of Bislama, this volume looks at the social history of the language, the sources of its vocabulary, and the development of various Bislama grammatical constructions. Thoroughly researched, very detailed and clearly and attractively produced. xxi + 422pp.

Crowley, Terry 1990. An illustrated Bislama-English and English-Bislama dictionary. Vila: Pacific Languages Unit and Vanuatu Extension Centre, University of the South Pacific. *Builds on the work of Camden (1977) and other sources to provide a very comprehensive modern dictionary of modern Bislama, with large numbers of useful illustrations, together with a comprehensive English index. [Currently undergoing revision]. vii + 478pp.

Crowley, Terry 1990. The position of Melanesian Pidgin in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. In John W.M. Verhaar (ed.), Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; pp.1-18. [Studies in Language Companion Series 20]. *A comparison of the status of Bislama in Vanuatu and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea, with brief details on the Komiti blong Bislama and the use of the language in the public domain.

Crowley, Terry 1990. Serial verbs and prepositions in Bislama. In John W.M. Verhaar (ed.), Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; pp.57-89. [Studies in Language Companion Series 20]. *An outline of verb serialisation, and a discussion of the development of prepositions (like kasem, raonem, bitim etc.) from serialised verbs.

Crowley, Terry 1991. Pijin long Melanisa tede ? Melanesian Pidgin today. Vox 5:43-47. *A general overview of the development and status of Melanesian Pidgin, written for a lay audience.

Crowley, Terry 1991. Varieties of Melanesian Pidgin: separate identities vs. European stereotypes. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 22:51-65. *Critically examines early sources on Melanesian Pidgin with a view to establishing their usefulness in deciding how and when the three national dialects diverged from each other.

Crowley, Terry 1991. Genesis of a preposition system in Bislama. In Ray Harlow (ed.), VICAL 2: Western Austronesian and Contact Languages (Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics). Auckland: Linguistic Society of New Zealand; pp.389-415. *Outlines the development of a coherent set of prepositions out of "a seemingly highly variable syntactic jumble" in earlier stages of the language's history.

Crowley, Terry 1992. Derivational morphology and structural complexity in nineteenth century Melanesian Pidgin. Te Reo 35:3-16. *Shows, contra Mühlhäusler, that Melanesian Pidgin was probably rather more stabilised in the 1870s than had previously been thought, and looks at a number of substratum influences on the language.

Crowley, Terry 1993. Père Pionnier and late nineteenth century Bislama. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 8,2:207-226. *Using 1890s material, shows that many features of modern Bislama were fairly well established by that time. Some features which Mühlhäusler has said are 20th century innovations were probably earlier developments.

Crowley, Terry 1993. Practical issues in Bislama lexicography. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 24,2:27-53. *Discusses a range of problems encountered in the compilation of Crowley's dictionary of the language.

Crowley, Terry 1995. A new Bislama dictionary. Institute of Pacific Studies and Pacific Languages Unit (University of the South Pacific). Suva. viii + 484 pp.
[Reviewed by Manfred Görlach (1997) World Englishes 18(2):336.]

Crowley, Terry 1996. Yumi toktok Bislama mo yumi tokbaot Bislama: teaching Bislama in Bislama. France Mugler and John Lynch (eds) Pacific Languages in Education, pp.258-72. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies.

Crowley, Terry 1998. Bislama: Orthographic and Attitudinal Evolution. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 27:119-146.

Crowley, Terry 1998. The Bislama lexicon before the First World War: written attestations. Peter Mühlhäusler (ed) Papers in Pidgin and Creole Linguistics No.5 pp.61-106. PL, A-91. Canberra.

Crowley, Terry F/c. The national drink and the national language in Vanuatu. JPS 104. *Looks at the creation of new terminology in Bislama surrounding the burgeoning urban kava-drinking scene.

Crowley, Terry (ed.) 1987. Introdaksen long stadi blong Bislama: Buk blong ridim. Suva: Ekstensen Sevis, Yunivesiti blong Saot Pasifik. *A set of readings for a course on the history and structure of Bislama. 139pp.

Guy, J.B.M.1974. Handbook of Bichelamar/Manuel de Bichelamar. Canberra: PL, C-34. *Two 50-page grammatical sketches of Bislama, in English and in French, plus word lists (Bislama-English-French, English-Bislama and French-Bislama). This handbook suffers from a number of inadequacies and has largely been superseded by later publications. iii + 256pp.

Jacomb, Edward1914. The English and the French in the New Hebrides. Melbourne: George Robertson; pp.90-104. *A short Bislama lexicon with some illustrative sentences.

Keesing, Roger N.1988. Melanesian Pidgin and the Oceanic substrate. Stanford: Stanford University Press. *Mainly though not solely dealing with Solomon Island Pijin, this significant work looks at syntactic congruences between Oceanic languages and Melanesian Pidgin, and has provided important fuel to the fiery debate about the importance of substrate influence. xii + 265pp.

Kuki, Hiroshi et al.1977. An introduction to the New Hebridean English pidgin or le bichelamar. Gengo Kenkyu 72:47-86.

Ligo, Godwyn 1987. Lanwis long nyus. In Terry Crowley (ed.), Introdaksen long stadi blong Bislama: Buk blong ridim. Suva: Ekstensen Sevis, Yunivesiti blong Saot Pasifik; pp.81-84. *A brief survey of language use in the Vanuatu media.

Lynch, John 1975. Bislama phonology and grammar: a review article. Kivung 8,2:186-204. *A review of Guy 1974 (see above) which points out numerous analytical and descriptive inadequacies in that work.

Lynch, John 1987. The French legacy in Bislama. In Donald C. Laycock & Werner Winter (eds.), A world of language: papers presented to Professor S.A. Wurm on his 65th birthday. Canberra: PL, C-100:411-420. *A classification of the French-derived vocabulary in Bislama into semantic domains, with some attempt to explain why French rather than some other language was the source of that vocabulary.

Lynch, John 1996. The banned national language: Bislama and formal education in Vanuatu. In France Mugler & John Lynch (eds.), Pacific languages in education. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies (USP); pp. 245-257.

Meyerhoff, Miriam 1997. "Be i no gat": Constraints on null subjects in Bislama. Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Report 97 (12). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

Mühlhäusler, Peter 1985. The number of Pidgin Englishes in the Pacific. PL, A-72:25-51. *Looks at the language/dialect issue and the problem of "counting" the number of separate pidgins/creoles in the Pacific, from both a historical and a synchronic point of view.

Mühlhäusler, Peter 1987. Tracing predicate markers in Pacific Pidgin English. English World Wide 8,1:97-121.

Pionnier, Jean-Nestor 1913. Pigeon-English ou bichelamar. Revue de linguistique et de philologie comparée 46:109-117, 184-198. *A grammatical sketch of late nineteenth century Bislama, with a short vocabulary and some sentences; the spelling of the language shows decidedly French influence.

Schmidt, Henri 1957. Le bichelamar. Études Mélanésiennes, Nouvelle Série 10-11:119-136. *A brief (600-word) French-English-Bislama word list.

Tim blong Baebol Translesen blong Kokonas 1984. Fasin blong raetem Bislama. Canberra: Department of Linguistics (Research School of Pacific Studies), Australian National University. *An attempt to provide a standardised spelling system for Bislama, based on the version used in the New testament translations.

Tryon, D.T. 1979. Bichelamar (New Hebrides). In Peter Mühlhäusler, J.A. Bennett and D.T. Tryon, Some English-based pidgins in the Southwestern Pacific, in S.A. Wurm (ed.), New Guinea and neighbouring areas: a sociolinguistic laboratory. [Contributions to the Sociology of Language 24]. The Hague: Mouton; pp.72-77. *A brief outline of the development, use and status of Bislama.

Tryon, D.T. 1986. Neologisms in Bislama (Vanuatu). In Joshua A. Fishman et al. (eds.), The Fergusonian impact, vol. 2: Sociolinguistics and the sociology of language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter; pp.305-313.

Tryon, D.T. 1987. Bislama: an introduction to the national language of Vanuatu. Canberra: PL, D-72. *A quite thorough course in the language for the new learner, marred only by occasional rather colonial conversations. xiv + 261pp.

Tryon, D.T. 1991. Wanem Bislama?. In Robert Blust (ed.), Currents in Pacific linguistics: Papers on Austronesian linguistics and ethnolinguistics in honour of George W. Grace. Canberra: PL, C-117: 509-519. *Looks at some regionalisms in Bislama, and especially at regional conservatism which may throw light on the history and development of the language.

Tryon, D.T. 1991. Regionalisms and the history of Bislama. In Ray Harlow (ed.), VICAL 2 - Western Austronesian and contact languages: Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Auckland: Linguistic Society of New Zealand; pp.461-471. *A brief comparative study of regionalisms in Bislama, many of which show more affinity with Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea than with standard Bislama.

Tryon, D.T. n.d.[1985]. Evri samting yu wantem save long Bislama be yu fraet tumas blong askem. [Singapore]: Media Masters. *A popular illustrated introduction to the language.

Tryon, D.T. & J.M. Charpentier 1982. Functions of Bislama in the New Hebrides and independent Vanuatu. English World Wide 3,2:147-160.

Walsh, D.S. 1986. The Oceanic influence on semantic values for personal pronouns, kinship terms, and some time and space reference in Bislama. In Chris Corne & Andrew Pawley (eds.), Le coq et le cagou: essays on French & Pacific languages in honour of Jim Hollyman. Auckland: Linguistic Society of New Zealand [Te Reo 29]; pp.131-146. *A semantic comparison of certain semantic fields in Bislama and the substrate languages, showing that the semantic parallels of the Bislama terms can be found mainly, though by no means solely, in Oceanic languages rather than in English.

Wurm, S.A. 1971. Pidgins, creoles and lingue franche. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. 8: Linguistics in Oceania. The Hague: Mouton; pp.999-1021. *A discussion of pidgins, creoles and contact languages in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a brief mention of "Beach-la-Mar" in Vanuatu, and including mention of a (non-existent) French-lexifier pidgin.

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