Two Words for 'We' — Tok Pisin Grammar

English "we" is ambiguous. "We're going to the cinema" might be an invitation or might quietly exclude the person you are talking to. Tok Pisin settles the question in the pronoun itself, and you cannot avoid choosing.

The Two Words

- we, including you: literally "you-me"
- we, excluding you: literally "me-fellow"

The forms give the game away. is and joined together, so the person addressed is inside the group by construction. builds on alone.

Inviting

takes in the listener. Used in a suggestion it amounts to "let's".

Yumi baim nupela buk.
Let's buy a new book.
Yumi go long haus piksa o maski?
Shall we go to the cinema or forget it?
Yumi mas lusim ples nau yet.
We have to leave this place right now.

Leaving Out

reports on a group the listener is not part of.

Mipela i kaikai lans.
We're having lunch.
Pikinini man bilong mipela i nogat wok.
Our son has no job.

Why It Matters

The two are not stylistic variants, and swapping them changes what you have said. invites the person in front of you to eat; tells them that a meal is happening without them. Getting this wrong is not a grammatical slip so much as a social one, which is why it is worth fixing early.

Yumi baim nupela buk.
Let's buy a new book (you and I).
Mipela i kaikai lans.
We're having lunch (not you).

Which One Takes the Predicate Marker

There is a small asymmetry. never takes the predicate marker , behaving like and . takes it in careful speech, behaving like and . So the two words for "we" do not even pattern alike grammatically.

Yumi mas lusim ples nau yet.
We have to leave this place right now.
Mipela i gat tupela mama na papa na foapela tumbuna man na meri.
We have two mothers and fathers and four grandparents.

The Same Split in Other Languages

This distinction, which linguists call clusivity, is normal across the languages of Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and Tok Pisin took it from them rather than from English. It runs through the whole pronoun set: , "you two", is likewise precise in a way English "you" never is.

Yutupela wokim wanem nau?
What are you two doing now?
Welkam, plis yutupela sindaun.
Welcome, please sit down, you two.

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Tok Pisin course

37 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 7. A few of them, with the words “Two Words for 'We'” is about in bold:

Yes. Yumi kaikai kuk bilong Saina.
Yes. Let's eat Chinese food.
Lesson 127
Pikinini meri bilong yumi stap we? - Em stap long skul.
Where is our daughter? - She's at school.
Lesson 242
Noken lus tingting long sis bilong yumi long piknik.
Don't forget the cheese for our picnic.
Lesson 477

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