Hiri Motu
Sign in to saveAlso known as ho, Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, Hiri
Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea
Hiri Motu is an Austronesian language spoken in Papua New Guinea that developed as a trade language used by merchants and traders in the region. It matters because it represents an important example of how languages evolve to facilitate communication between different communities, and it provides insight into the linguistic and cultural history of the Pacific.
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Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- modern language
- Subclass of
- Motu
- Country
- Papua New Guinea
- Has use
- lingua franca
Show 9 more facts
- Wikimedia language code
- ho
- writing system
- Latin alphabet
- number of speakers, writers, or signers
- 120000
- native label
- Hiri Motu
- indigenous to
- Western Province
- topic's main category
- Category:Hiri Motu
- P10369
- Battle of Marignano
- Commons category
- Hiri Motu
Sources (7)
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Encyclopedic overview
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of its capital city, Port Moresby.
It is a simplified version of Motu, from the Austronesian language family. Although it is strictly neither a pidgin nor a creole, it possesses some features from both language types. Phonological and grammatical differences make Hiri Motu not mutually intelligible with Motu. The languages are lexically very similar, and retain a common, albeit simplified, Austronesian syntactical basis. It has also been influenced to some degree by Tok Pisin.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Hiri Motu” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
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