9. Port Vila, Vanuatu

Tuesday, 16 OCT 2012

Vanuatu was formerly a French possession known as New Hebrides. Port Vila is the capital and largest city (40,000) in Vanuatu. English and French cultures coexist with each other and with the native Melanesian people.

The four-masted schooner in the harbor was seized by the government for trying to smuggle in firearms.

 

I got a kick out of the signs in pidgin English, the common language for the natives who suffer with dozens of non-mutually-intelligible dialects. It is one of three official languages in Vanuatu alongside French and English. Many of the words in pidgin can be deciphered if you pronounce them just as they look. "Blong" comes from "belong" and is the possessive, equivalent to standard English "of". This sign reads "National Museum of Vanuatu".

"Sandroing" means "sand drawing"; "spesel kastom" means "special custom". See if you can find the pidgin meaning "a (one) project of the Vanuatu Cultural Center".

Here is an example of sandroing blong Vanuatu, by the native who also demonstrated a couple of musical instruments.

A poster about a traditional resource management program:

"Yumi" shows up frequently in pidgin. No, it doesn't mean yummy. It's the plural personal pronoun ("you-me") equivalent to we, us, our ( as in "blong yumi").

One more example. You should be able to figure this one out:

 

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