Editing Bislama (section)

==History==
During the period of "[[blackbirding]]" in the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of thousands of Pacific islanders (many of them from the [[New Hebrides]] – now the [[Vanuatu]] archipelago) were taken as indentured labourers, often kidnapped, and forced to work on plantations, mainly in [[Queensland, Australia]], and [[Fiji]].<ref>Emma Christopher, Cassandra Pybus and Marcus Buford Rediker (2007). ''Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World'', University of California Press, pp 188–190. {{ISBN|0-520-25206-3}}.</ref> With several languages being spoken in these plantations a localised [[pidgin]] was formed, combining English vocabulary with grammatical structures typical of languages in the region.<ref>For this whole section, see: Tryon & Charpentier (2004), and Crowley (1990).</ref> This early plantation pidgin is the origin not only of Bislama, but also of [[Tok Pisin]] in [[Papua New Guinea]], and [[Pijin]] of the [[Solomon Islands]]; though not of [[Torres Strait Creole]] in the north of Australia.

This creole started spreading throughout the Vanuatu archipelago at the turn of the 20th century, as former blackbirds and their descendants began to return to their native islands. Knowledge of this creole would facilitate communication not only with European traders and settlers, but also between native populations, and because Vanuatu is the most language-dense country in the world (one count puts it at [[Languages of Vanuatu|113 languages]] for a population of 225,000),<ref>See Crowley ([[#TC-situation|2000]]:50); François ([[#AF-diversity|2012]]:86).</ref> Bislama usefully serves as a [[lingua franca]] for communication between ni-Vanuatu, as well as with and between foreigners. Although it has been primarily a spoken-only language for most of its history, the first dictionary of Bislama was published in 1977.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Camden |first1=Bill |title=A DESCRIPTIVE DICTIONARY, Bislama to English |url=https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/DESCRIPTIVE-DICTIONARY-Bislama-English-CAMDEN-Pastor/21712215934/bd |website=AbeBooks |publisher=Maropa Bookshop. Vila. |access-date=23 March 2024}}</ref> A new dictionary was published in 1995.<ref>See Crowley ([[#TC-dict|1995]]).</ref> This, along with its second edition in 2004, has helped to create a standardised and uniform spelling of written Bislama.

Besides Bislama, most ni-Vanuatu also know their local language, the local language of their father and/or mother, as well as their spouse, oftentimes. The country's official languages of tuition in schools and educational institutions are English and French.

===Name===
The name of Bislama (also referred to, especially in French, as ''Bichelamar'') comes via the early 19th century word ''Beach-la-Mar'' from pseudo-French ''biche de mer'' or ''bêche de mer'', [[Holothuroidea|sea cucumber]], which itself comes from an alteration of the Portuguese {{Lang|pt|bicho do mar}} "sea animal".<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=bêche-de-mer |encyclopedia=American Heritage Dictionary |url=https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=B%C3%AACHE-DE-MER |date=2000 |language=en}}</ref> In the early 1840s, sea cucumbers were also harvested and dried at the same time that [[sandalwood]] was gathered. The names ''biche-la-mar'' and ''Sandalwood English'' came to be associated with the kind of pidgin that came to be used by the local laborers between themselves, as well as their English-speaking overseers.<ref>See Crowley (1990).</ref>

[[Robert Louis Stevenson]] wrote in an account of his travels through the Pacific in 1888 and 1889, "the natives themselves have often scraped up a little English&nbsp;... or an efficient pidgin, what is called to the westward ''Beach-la-Mar''."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stevenson |first=Robert Louis |url=http://www.1stworldlibrary.org |title=In the South Seas |publisher=1st World Publishing |year=2004 |isbn=1-59540-504-6 |edition=1st |location=Fairfield, IA |pages=15}}</ref> In [[Jack London]]'s story "Yah! Yah! Yah!", one of his "[[South Sea Tales (1911)|South Sea Tales]]", there is repeated a reference to "a bastard lingo called ''bech-de-mer''", and much of the story's dialogue is conducted in it.

Today, the word ''bislama'' itself is seldom used by younger speakers of Bislama to refer to sea cucumbers, as a new re-borrowing from pseudo-French ''bêche de mer'', which has taken the form ''besdemea'', has become more popular.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crowley |first=Terry |title=Beach-la-Mar to Bislama: The Emergence of a National Language in Vanuatu |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1990 |location=Oxford |pages=33 |chapter=1}}</ref>