Inventing new words . . .

Languages are always changing. That's a fact. Tok Pisin, the common trade language in many parts of PNG, is no exception. In fact, because Tok Pisin originally developed as a mixture of several languages, and because in many ways it is still developing, I would venture to say that Tok Pisin may be changing even more quickly than the average language. Tok Pisin has a relatively limited vocabulary so, although it is possible to say anything you want to say, sometimes it takes several words or even a whole sentence to explain a particular concept. That's no problem if you're not in a hurry, but sometimes people take a "shortcut" and simply stick in an English word, often adding Tok Pisin verb endings or changing the sounds to fit with common Tok Pisin sounds. If a particular English word is used often enough, by enough people in enough places, it eventually becomes "adopted" into Tok Pisin and people begin to think of it as an actual Tok Pisin word rather than a borrowed English word.

For example, take the English word 'catch', change it to 'kets' (since 'ch' is not a common sound in Tok Pisin), add the Tok Pisin verb ending -im, and you have 'ketsim', a brand new Tok Pisin verb. When does it officially become Tok Pisin? Please let me know if you ever find out . . .