Wendy Kempsell
2-10-2009
Superstrate
German
English
 All
Substrate
Tok Pisin
Melanesian languages
(Kuanua)
speakers are fluent in Tok Pisin and
most speak Standard German or English.
 Developed at the Vunapope Catholic
Mission, a boarding school run by
German missionaries.
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1884: Germany ruled Kaiser Wilhelms Land and Bismarck
Archipelego; based administration out of Rabaul. No great
effort was made to stop the use of Tok Pisin as lingua franca.
Heterogeneous population: German, English, Filipino,
Chinese, Australian, Tolai, Guamese, Malay
Migrant workers and colonists married local women.
1897: Catholic missionaries established a school at
Vunapope for the children of nonindigenous fathers:
children were only allowed occasional visits to their
mothers’ families.
Children had limited exposure to either their mothers’ or
their fathers’ languages.
First language was most likely Tok Pisin.
1900: German colonial government attempted
(unsuccessfully) to replace Pidgin English with German.
School was taught in German: Tok Pisin was not allowed.
 Students
used Tok Pisin with each other, and
began replacing TP words with German
ones
 Unserdeutsch stabilized quickly.
 1914: Australian rule of New Guinea.
 Fathers left New Guinea, and very few took
their family.
 1914-1945: school had 100-200 students at
any time.
 Instruction was changed to English.
 The first students tended to marry other
students; home language was Unserdeutsch.

After World War II the school was taught with the Australian
syllabus, and German was prohibited

American and Australian teachers

Less students had knowledge of Standard German: some teachers
even learned Unserdeutsch.

The community dispersed, more married outside of Vunapope and
some became Australian citizens.

1975: independence from Australia. Instead of becoming Papua
New Guinean citizens, most Unserdeutsch speakers moved to
Australia.

1980: estimates that only around 100 fluent speakers.

Very few speakers today. The community is still strong, but only
older members use Unserdeutsch.
 Great
variation within the community
• Generational: Older speakers were taught in
German, while younger speakers were taught in
English.
• Possible variation due to discomfort in speaking
with outsiders.
 Due
to formal schooling, it is almost
impossible to find a basilectal level of
Unserdeutsch.
 26
phonemes
 9 vowels: / i, ɪ, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, ʊ, u/
 Simplification of some consonant clusters
SG /Ix/ is /I/ in UD.
/nIxt/ realized as /nI/ or /nIxt/ .
 Great variation in phonology.
 As in southern dialects of German,
contains /w/ and apical /r/.

Word Order: SVO (no changes after auxiliaries or for questions)
UD I wird bleib zwei Woche in Lae
I will stay two week in Lae
SD Ich werde zwei Wochen in Lae bleiben.
I will
two weeks in Lae stay
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Serial verbs:
UD Du
holen diese Eimer
you:SNG fetch this
komm!
bucket come
TP Yu
kisim dispela bucket i kam.
you:SNG
fetch this bucket PM come
Bring this bucket.
UD
Du
laufen geht wo?
you:SNG run go where
TP Yu
ran i
go we?
you:SNG
run PM go where
Where are you running to?

‘Fi’ complementizer
UD I bin am denken fi kaufen ein Ferd.
I am PPT think for buy a horse
I’m thinking of buying a horse.
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Plural marker ‘alle’ (TP ol)
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Definite and indefinite articles, but not inflected for
case or gender
• Definite ‘de’
Indefinite ‘ein’
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Inclusive pronoun ‘uns’ and exclusive pronoun ‘wir’
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Copula
• Not only is there a copula, but it is inflected for person and
tense.
• The only verb that is always conjugated for person and
number.
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Tense
• Tense does not need to be specified if a previous sentence already set the
action in the past.
• A sentence not marked for tense can be set in the present or the future or have
no time reference.
• No difference between imperfect and perfect past. Past tense is formed with
past participle or the copula.

3 modal verbs:
UD
will
SG wollen
want to

kann
koennen
can
muss
muessen
must
Durative form similar to English continuous
UD Der Mensch, wo is am bauen de Haus, hat gehauen sein Finger.
the person who is PPT build the house has hit
his finger
The person who’s building the house has hit his finger.

Passive constructions
UD De Chicken war gestohlen bei alle Raskol
the chicken was stolen
by PL thieves
The chicken was stolen by the thieves.
 http://www.uni-
koeln.de/gbs/unserdeutsch/rumpelstilts
kin.html
 Story
told in Unserdeutsch and
transcribed.

Fits the description of a Creole:
• Arose out of a pidgin which existed for less than a generation
• No more than 20% of population were speakers of the dominant
language
Interesting Exception: the speakers already had Tok
Pisin as a common language.
 No one outside the community learned the language.
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Secret Language?
Unserdeutsch “must be regarded as a creole which
became a postcreole continuum before stable creole
norms could establish themselves.” Muehlaeusler
(1984)
Arends, J., Muysken, P. , and Smith, N. (1995) Pidgins and Creoles: An
Introduction. Creole language library, v. 15. Amsterdam: J.
Benjamins.
Klein, T.B. (2004): Creole phonology typology: Phoneme inventory
size, vowel quality distinctions and stop consonant series in Bhatt,
P. & Plag, I. (eds.): The structure of Creole words: Segmental, syllabic
and morphological aspects. (pp. 3-21. ) Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer
Verlag,.
Muhlhausler, P. (1984). Tracing the roots of Pidgin German. Language
and Communication, 4(1), 27-57.
Unserdeutsch (Rabaul Creole German). (n.d.). Retrieved February
9, 2009 from Gesellschaft fuer Bedrohte Sprachen e.V.:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/gbs/unserdeutsch/index.html
Volker, C. (1989): Rabaul Creole German Syntax in: Working Papers in
Linguistics, Vol. 21 / 1", University of Hawai'i: Department of
Linguistics (p. 153 – 189)
Volker, C. (1991). The birth and decline of Rabaul Creole German.
Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, 22(1-2), 143-156.