Word: pidgin
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...slightly outnumbered by islanders of Japanese origin (26.4%); the other major non-Caucasian strain is Filipino (17%), followed by Chinese and Korean. Thus while Hawaiian, a melodious language that the missionaries alphabetized into a mere twelve characters, is still spoken and sung on the island, many natives converse in pidgin English, the world's most colorful lingua franca. A dark-hued hotel waiter, cussed out by an irate Texan who has received the soup in his lap, retorts: "Eh, now, no take out on me, you stupid buggah! Udderwise bimeby I gone broke your head in small tiny pieces...
Every Friday thousands of natives stream out of the jungle to buy copies of Wantok (literally, "One Talk," but meaning people who speak the same language), a weekly publication in pidgin distributed by Papua New Guinea's Protestant and Catholic churches. Until 1972, many of the natives bought such publications only for the paper, which they used to roll their pungent plug tobacco. But then Wantok began carrying the adventures of the Phantom translated into pidgin. (Sample dialogue: "Fantom, yu pren tru bilong mi. Inap yu ken helpim mi nau?" Meaning: "Phantom, you are a true friend of mine...
...natives may have to do without their favorite unless a dispute over syndication rights to the strip is resolved. Local rights to The Phantom have long been owned by the nation's sole daily newspaper, the Post-Courier, which publishes The Phantom in English, not pidgin. This summer, after the fast-growing Wantok moved to a new and larger plant, the Australian-owned Post-Courier decided to assert its exclusive right to the comic strip, and the local distributor pulled The Phantom from Wan-tok. Says Father Frank Mihalic, editor of Wantok: "I don't see any conflict...
From Caruso to Corelli, the Italian tenor has always been and remains music's only matinee idol. The tenors have preserved a paradoxical mystique, combining refined and vertiginous high C's on stage with crude pidgin English and fiery Latin lust off. In most respects, Pavarotti lives out this mystique, regularly publicizing his voracious sexual and insatiable culinary appetites. But when it comes to comparisons with forebears where it really counts, Pavarotti's mystique loses potency. On the subject of singing, mere mention of Pavarotti's name in the same breath as that of the illustrious Caruso and Gigli marks...
...Amin Dada, It's difficult to imagine a film which could make Idi Amin look good, but this one does, if only by contrast to the director's superficial and racist approach. Focussing almost entirely on Amin talking, the film portrays him as a fat African who speaks pidgin English, looks awfully funny in Western dress, and has delusions of grandeur. What needs to be remembered while watching this inane spectacle is that the man is a mass murderer whose caprises are only slightly more barbaric than his policies, and that many atrocities were undoubtedly going on while Barbet Schroeder...