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Today was our first Tok Pisin lesson! But we had a substitute because our actual teacher could make it  Tok Pisin is the trade language here in PNG (not everyone speaks it, especially in remote/isolated areas). It was originally a pidgin (and in some places it still is). A pidgin is a linguistic term for a language that develops from contact between two languages (in this case English and various indigenous languages). It borrows vocab from one and the grammar from another. The vocabulary of TP (Tok Pisin) is from English (but not all of it) and the grammar is from the tribal languages. In some places, like here in Madang, it’s becoming a “Creole” which means it’s being taught to children as a first or mother tongue. Most people use it as a second language and have there “Tok ples” in their villages and homes. “Tok ples” is literally talk place, the talk or language you use in your place or home. It is the native language of the people and the language Wycliffe translates the Bible into (because it is easiest for people to understand in the language they know best). There are more than 800 “Tok ples”s here in PNG!