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I love melomelo Fridays

kastom_lif

Kava Lover
Spotted on the book of face: https://m.facebook.com/groups/468274273284808?view=permalink&id=1419650771480482

Quote with translation:
Meeting going on at Vuiberugu village on North Ambae with someone from the USA. They will buy dry kava from Ambae only, borogoru and melomelo for 6000 vt/kg. Sources say 6000vt is the biyer's price bit the meeting is still going on (as of 13 February) for the price and the farmers of North Ambae are negotiating. Now people will start to plant more and reduce consumption. LOL sorry to families in Vila who only want kava Ambae. The buyer will buy 3 year old kava and older
Thanks to everybody for making dreams come true. Looking forward to buying melomelo from all vendors who may be carrying it in the coming days. Happy kava Friday.
 
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Gourmet Hawaiian Kava

Kava Expert
Kava Vendor
Spotted on the book of face: https://m.facebook.com/groups/468274273284808?view=permalink&id=1419650771480482

Quote with translation:

Thanks to everybody for making dreams come true. Looking forward to buying melomelo from all vendors who may be carrying it in the coming days. Happy kava Friday.
Great translation, your going to have to make a list of words like "blo" or "blong" means. Maybe a small list of some words with the translation so we can understand a bit more. I guess what I am trying to say is teach me to talk like that. ;)
Aloha.

Chris
 

kastom_lif

Kava Lover
Great translation, your going to have to make a list of words like "blo" or "blong" means. Maybe a small list of some words with the translation so we can understand a bit more. I guess what I am trying to say is teach me to talk like that. ;)
Aloha.

Chris
Blo vs. blong... it's just a contraction. People write Bislama how they speak it. Blong hem even gets smashed into blem sometimes.

Imagine an alternate universe where Hawaiian Pidgin was the official majority language of Hawaii, and it kept on evolving over generations. Bislama stay lidat ;)

 

gork

Kava Enthusiast
BWAHAHA Me kava soaked Swabs! today shall be a most awesome day full of "the powers of bodacity and awesome" (Poe, Kunfu Panda)

and "slow to impulse! St.Patrick's day is coming as well (saturday) take is in ensign! Standard orbit!" (In my a humoursly bad Captain, pause Kirk pause voice)
 

verticity

I'm interested in things
Great translation, your going to have to make a list of words like "blo" or "blong" means. Maybe a small list of some words with the translation so we can understand a bit more. I guess what I am trying to say is teach me to talk like that. ;)
Aloha.

Chris
Blong or blo is used a lot. It seems to be a general purpose possessive preposition, meaning "from" or "of", probably from the English "belong" e.g:
Chris blong Hawaii = Chris from Hawaii
Man blong kava = A man who habitually drinks a lot of kava
Department blong Agriculture = Department of Agriculture
Chis blong Hawaii blong kava = Chris from Hawaii habitually drinks a lot of kava ::chugger::

Long is another general purpose preposition meaning "next to", "in", "at", etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bislama

This site has some basic information about grammar which is useful:
https://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/bislama.html

Tuff tumas = something like "cool beans" I think... I'm signed up for some ni-Van Facebook news groups so it is interesting to try do decipher the comments...
 
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gork

Kava Enthusiast
Tuff Tumes: yeah that could well be. When it gets weird is with ryming slang: Tuff times, take some apple and pears to get a John Bloke.
(That's cool man. You need to take the staires to find my flat, and can you get the GF keys, and pipe? she needs it for her cosplay [for example])
 

gork

Kava Enthusiast
And here in NM their's a weird Pidgeon of english called Nortane: Ee no way! get the hombresas and ma' bi' and Crayoles!
(Oh blank! can you go back to the house and get the lunch for me and the misses? My doughter fergot to get her homework)
 

kastom_lif

Kava Lover
"Tuff Tumas" is also the name blong wan DJ.

Bislama is so neat because although it has a HUGE amount of vocabulary in common with English, the underlying grammar is Melanesian. Plus it's evolved from a pidgin, through a creole and into a full blown language.

Sometimes people hype up the "funny" phrases to entertain tourists, though I find it kind of cringy. Nobody says mixmasta blong Jisas outside of corny tourist brochures. Helikopta is a perfectly cromulent Bislama word.

As English speakers learning Bislama (as well as Tok Pisin and Solomon Pijin) just remember that false cognates are everywhere.

stap kwaet nomo means "just be quiet."

In PNG Tok Pisin, there's an interesting contrast between lukim and painim. Lukim means see/watch/look, and painim means to search. So mebi yu save stap painim painim i go tasol... lukim... nogat!

And although PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have (mostly) mutually intelligible versions of this pidgin, they're not at all the same thing. If you have a whole lot of something in PNG, you have plante. In Solo, you have staka and in Vanuatu you have fulap.

And in da ʻaina, you get choke. Bula fo bumbye we get choke melomelo.
 
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kastom_lif

Kava Lover
There are some resources online for learning Bislama, if you absolutely must understand our favourite shitty rap.

Since our main man Nawarake got his start in Vanuatu as a pis kop, you can't go wrong with the US Peace Corps' own language learning materials: https://www.livelingua.com/project/peace-corps/Bislama/

Pentecostisland.net is maintained by a British guy who became immersed in the land of kava through a similar volunteering effort. Lots of stuff to read here: http://www.pentecostisland.net/languages/bislama/

There's also Facebook. As much as some of us may dislike it, FB has become the social media of choice in Vanuatu. So much that being online is known as being "green" (as in the color of your FB icon). Yumi Toktok Stret is a thoroughly random and direct tap into modern Bislama as she is spoke. Also check Bishlamajokes if you enjoy corny memes.

Finally, searching for Bislama phrases online often will get results from various missionary organizations. The LDS church especially seems to have a lot of localized content in Bislama. Mormons may not be fans of kava, but they sure try hard to relate well to every culture. Gotta respect that.
 

HeadHodge

Bula To Eternity
"Tuff Tumas" is also the name blong wan DJ.

Bislama is so neat because although it has a HUGE amount of vocabulary in common with English, the underlying grammar is Melanesian. Plus it's evolved from a pidgin, through a creole and into a full blown language.

Sometimes people hype up the "funny" phrases to entertain tourists, though I find it kind of cringy. Nobody says mixmasta blong Jisas outside of corny tourist brochures. Helikopta is a perfectly cromulent Bislama word.

As English speakers learning Bislama (as well as Tok Pisin and Solomon Pijin) just remember that false cognates are everywhere.

stap kwaet nomo means "just be quiet."

In PNG Tok Pisin, there's an interesting contrast between lukim and painim. Lukim means see/watch/look, and painim means to search. So mebi yu save stap painim painim i go tasol... lukim... nogat!

And although PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have (mostly) mutually intelligible versions of this pidgin, they're not at all the same thing. If you have a whole lot of something in PNG, you have plante. In Solo, you have staka and in Vanuatu you have fulap.
I'm happy to report I'm very multi-lingual...
I fluently speak:
* cobol
* fortran
* html
* javascript
* bash script
* c+
* c++
* php
* basic
* dos
* powerShell
* asp
But Ich spreche kein Englisch und Ich spreche nicht Pidgin
 

verticity

I'm interested in things
"Tuff Tumas" is also the name blong wan DJ.

Bislama is so neat because although it has a HUGE amount of vocabulary in common with English, the underlying grammar is Melanesian. Plus it's evolved from a pidgin, through a creole and into a full blown language.

Sometimes people hype up the "funny" phrases to entertain tourists, though I find it kind of cringy. Nobody says mixmasta blong Jisas outside of corny tourist brochures. Helikopta is a perfectly cromulent Bislama word.

As English speakers learning Bislama (as well as Tok Pisin and Solomon Pijin) just remember that false cognates are everywhere.

stap kwaet nomo means "just be quiet."

In PNG Tok Pisin, there's an interesting contrast between lukim and painim. Lukim means see/watch/look, and painim means to search. So mebi yu save stap painim painim i go tasol... lukim... nogat!

And although PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have (mostly) mutually intelligible versions of this pidgin, they're not at all the same thing. If you have a whole lot of something in PNG, you have plante. In Solo, you have staka and in Vanuatu you have fulap.
Speaking of false cognates, the Bislama word for child, which in that language is just a normal word, is (probably for depressing historical reasons) something that one should definitely not go around saying in the southern United States ... you can look it up...
 
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