Tok Pisin

"Tenkiu tru for your leadership and cooperation governments of PNG and Australia," she added, using the phrase from the creole Tok Pisin or Pidgin language used in PNG that means "thank-you very much".

He works in four languages: Kurdish, Farsi, English and Tok Pisin; and he is conducting research and writing a book while incarcerated.

Speaking in the native Tok Pisin language to several thousand ecstatic Bougainvilleans, many wearing traditional grass skirts, carrying spears and waving the islands' cobalt-blue flag, he emphasized the need for economic development.

Yet while Tayap may have only a few dozen speakers, it is a more fully developed and mature language than Tok Pisin, a pidgin created by native tribesmen who worked on white plantations.

Gapun women — who have less exposure to Tok Pisin than the men — are the real masters of the art form, with a creativity that tough-talking Captain Haddock of the Tintin comics would appreciate.