Paying a bride price places a positive value on the life of the bride and the relationship that she enters by marriage.

It makes her a valued member of her husband's clan and community and ensures she is treated well.

Bride price is not a simple act of purchase, as one might buy a tin of fish at a trade store. In that sense the Tok Pisin term 'baim meri' is inaccurate.

Unfortunately too many men nowadays take the term literally and consequently corrupt the tradition.

A lot of domestic violence can be traced to this misinformed proprietary interpretation of bride price.

A better term would focus on the idea of marriage, i.e., 'prais bilong marit' or 'marit prais' and not on the bride or the act of buying.
________

In Tok Pisin, the word 'baim' can mean 'buy' or 'pay'. The term 'baim meri' means to pay bride price - KJ

Some thinking on the expression of written versus spoken text may be helpful at particularly tricky juncture for communicating clearly ideas/actions such as "peim meri and baim meri".

Literally, and strictly by custom too I suspect, we do not 'buy or pay for a woman' (that's akin to prostitution) we buy (more precisely exchange, but folks don't talk about that nere tere) or pay the expected, negotiated and agreed customary value of a woman's worth for the groom's family, and loss to her own thereof, i.e., brideprice.

Specifically, I suggest that in most instances we say 'yumi save baim/peim brideprice bilong ol meri' in reference to the entire customary process, whereas we may say 'yumi save baim/peim meri' in the context of speaking about bride price itself as a singular act devoid of it's cultural basis.

Perhaps the mix up is a result of the commercialization of this customary practice of bride price, the loss of it's fundamental social purpose, and the convenient commodification of women and references towards them in our language use, i.e., we buy/pay for women.

Actually, no. We buy or pay for the socially recognized value that the transfer of a woman from one family into another family means to us within the context of our communal livelihood.

Today we confuse that exchange with a cash payment based on personal lifestyle.

Yes, Kaim O, what you say is true. Each region has its own peculiarity with spoken and written Tok Pisin.

The more it is written, read and perhaps debated, perhaps we can have some rules - although that means some sheer hard work going forward.

It's both meaning and usage that are of concern. I would like to illustrate with peiim meri and baiim meri. These are to me the same things.

Putting out bride wealth at marriage and again after the instalment of the bride in her bridal village completes the act of bride price.

My reading of the act around securing a bride is based on my own particular cultural and traditional process and that is the meaning that I read into the words peiim and baiim.

These unfortunate words also have the ability to bring out unpolitically correct norms around them. They are an unfortunate placings of words that does not explain the intricacies around reviews and norms.

The relationship between tribes and villages and, for example, the issue of a person (the woman) dying in a foreign land where she was not born but adopted into by marriage is an important issue.

There are a host of other reasons why there has to be peiim and baiim.

So when Daniel writes peiim and baiim, while the words are correct and standard Tok Pisin, we both may be saying different things with different meanings.

The same with our 860 Tok Ples [traditional languages]. There needs to be some rules. Again some sheer but not impossible hard work - we just need to write a bit more and by many more other PNGns.

We need rules like while short form Tok Pisin is okay, the written form should be long form: for example, lo (spoken), long (written); blo (s), bilong (w); pla (s), pela (w).

And Kaim O, I have been blessed to have listened to Musau missionaries go 'hawzat', 'avinun', 'wonem', 'baimbai' na 'ah laka' over at the Seventh Day Adventist college that have captured me even though they are not standard Apo Tok Pisin.

I still add new words continuously.
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And in adding 'Kaim', Baka, you've sent me on a scamper through the internet in an effort to pin down its meaning. Best I've come up with (and this only through deduction) is 'wantok', rendered in the Enga language. Put me out of my misery... - KJ

How Tok Pisin is spoken and written varies from province to province. Words from Baka Bina’s article like hawsat, avinun, wonem are not how I would spell them.

Also, words from the local vernaculars can easily make their way into Tok Pisin. Students of Tok Pisin can very easily be confused if they read a pidgin translation from one part of the country to another.

I have used three languages in my new novel ‘The Old Man’s Dilemma: Love, Grief, happiness & Rebellion, A Modern-day Novel from PNG'.

Compare how I had translated these lines with how one could have done it if you are from another province or is living there.

It would be interesting to see how one can translate the Pidgin sentences to English. And from the Enga language translated to English and how that can be translated to Tok Pisin.

“Delisa mas kam wantaim yu. Mi no ting olsem yu bai wokim haus. Mi no ting olsem yu bai wokim bikpela mumu. Mi no ting yu bai gipim pein a mekim oldgeta samting long sem taim.

“Yu wanpela gutpela man. Mi laikim yu stret. Igat sampela man em ol stap longlong. Ol pipia man save lusim meri pikinini na ronawei wantaim yanpela meri. Nogat sem bilong ol.

“Ol man mas save olsem olgeta meri em wankain. Ol gutpela man save lukautim ol meri pikinini gut. Mi wanbel long yu soim gutpela pasin. Tenk yu tru long olgeta samting”

And the English translation…

"Delisa must come with you. I never expected a new house. I did not expect any big party. I did not expect any bride price payment all at the same time.

"You have demonstrated goodness. I admire you. There are other men who are foolish. They abandon their wives and children at the sight of new woman. Shame on them.

"Every man must understand that all women are of the same anatomy. Real men look after their wives and children well. I admire you for everything you have done. All men who abuse and mistreat their wives must learn from you. Thank you for everything."

Three paragraphs down, I use the Enga language when a ‘wantok’ says something to The Old Man to conceal the hidden message or advice as is sometimes the case among Engans and other Papua New Guineans. It may seem rude or disrespectful, but it’s the Enga way.

Now, here is the Enga sentence with the translation into English. How would one translate that to Tok Pisin?

“Wanaku naim diu lelyamin ongo kinde maipoko,” one of The Old Man’s wantoks called out in their Enga dialect. ('They are giving us the girl, go ahead and pay the bride price.')

Note: This all happens at Bumbu village on the edge of Lae city in Wopa Country when The Old man pays bride price for Delisa’s hand. The above text is taken from page 77-78 of my book.
________

How about 'Oli givim yangpela meri long mipela, nau yu ken gohet paiim mani long baiim em'. Daniel's novel, The Old Man's Dilemma, is a marvellous read about present day PNG and available from Amazon - KJ

https://www.amazon.com.au/Old-Mans-Dilemma-Happiness-Rebellion-ebook/dp/B097ZY5SS2

Interesting response, Graham.

So what does 'Wes' mean? West New Britain or west in general? If you're sitting in Mosbi 'wes' could mean Kerema or Daru or anywhere in between.

Speaking of which, how to you say 'east', 'west', 'north' and 'south' in Tok Pisin?

Hap sun ikamap = east, hap sun igo daun = west but what about north and south?
_________

Graham capitalised 'West', so I assume he refers to 'the West', the rich white folk who cause the world so many problems - KJ

Atus loket! Tru tru o Graham, mi lus tingting olsem ol 'lauto' bai ino save long dispela nupela hap tok bilong ol Kombe, i isi isi kam insait long Tok Pisin.

Mi bin stilim tok bilong ol Kombe bilong West New Britain husat save usim dispela hap tok long 'expressim' nupela bel kirap or 'surprise'. Mangi Ariolo long Amerika save stori gut tru long ol Arowe na em putim planti stori long Facebook.

In my previous comment on this article I erroneously attributed the translation of Baka's work to Ed Brumby.

I have become aware that, in fact, the original translation was done by Baka himself.

Ed was responsible for translating Michael Dom's essay on the Crocodile Prize and PNG literature.

I apologise to all concerned for my mistake.
_________

Me too for not picking it up. I've now effected a minor change to Chris's comment to eliminate the error - KJ

It is 50 years since I last spoke and heard Tok Pisin with any regularity. This, combined with the fact that the Tok Pisin I learnt would now be regarded as archaic, means that I have to concentrate very hard indeed to decipher modern Tok Pisin.

Translating written text from one language to another is a notoriously fraught activity. To do the job well, especially with fiction, the translator cannot simply do a literal translation. If that is done then the subtleties and nuances of words and expression will be lost.

As I recall, German is a language that is extremely difficult to translate into English unless the translator is fully aware of the meaning and intent of some of German's famously long compound words.

Most of us will have experienced technical instructions for equipment made in China. They are often said to be written in 'Chinglish', where a translator has made a valiant but not entirely successful attempt to turn Chinese words and expressions into English.

From what I gather, Chinese is a tonal language, where quite subtle changes in the way a word is pronounced can completely alter its meaning.

English is not a tonal language but is full of irregular spellings and loaded with synonyms which can make translation tricky.

Tok Pisin started life as a pidgin language. It was meant to be simple to learn and so dispensed with the more complicated forms of verbs and tense that occur in English. This necessarily made it a bit convoluted at times but, mostly, it is pretty clear and direct.

These days it is a genuine creole language, which I understand to mean a recognisable language constructed using both a variety of borrowed words and phrases as well as entirely indigenous words and expressions.

The charm of Tok Pisin lies in the expressions used to express certain ideas as in the above text. For example, 'em ken harim neck bilong mi' meaning 'she can discern my voice'.

A literal translation would not do justice to the meaning and intent of this phrase, so Baka has clearly striven hard to stay true to his intent.

Such work is important if writing in Tok Pisin is ever to come to the attention of the wider world. Only then will people from other countries be able to truly appreciate the often surprising delights of the language now spoken by most Papua New Guineans.

Just one mistake... "It was not guava season...etc
Of course this in not Pesbuk Tok Pisin!