Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin

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ISO 639-3
  
bpl

AIATSIS
  
P3*

Glottolog
  
broo1238

Native speakers
  
NoneL2 speakers: 40–50 (no date)

Language family
  
Malay-based creoleEast IndonesianKupang Malay?Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin

Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin is a pidgin that sprang up in Broome, Western Australia in the early 20th century to facilitate communication between the various groups working in the pearling industry there—Japanese, Malays, Torres Strait Islanders, Koepangers, Hakka Chinese, Filipinos, a small number of Koreans, and local Australian Aborigines, mainly of the Bardi tribe but also Nyulnyul, Jabirrjabirr, Jukun, Yawuru and Karajarri people. Its words come primarily from the Malay language (specifically Kupang Malay), but it also took some words and grammatical features from Japanese, English (through the Pidgin English of the Aborigines), and the local Australian Aboriginal languages.

For example, the following sentence contains a Malay verb and Japanese grammatical particles, with the remaining words coming from English:

Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin is no longer in active use today, but some words and phrases that originated in the pidgin are still used by younger generations of Asian-Aboriginals as a marker of ethnic identity.

References

Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin Wikipedia