No ken kamap olsem kokomo sopos yu wanpela kumul. No ken wokim fasin bilong kumul na lik lik pisin sopos yu dok. Yumi olgeta kan wokim singout. Yumi Underware.

The word tok means 'word' or 'speech' as in 'talk', and pisin means 'pidgin'. Other names for the language include New Guinea Pidgin, Melanesian Pidgin English or Neo-Melanesian. Tok Pisin started out as a Pidgin - a simple contact language used by people who didn't share a common language. Over time is has evolved and become a creole acquiring more complex grammar in the process. The majority of Tok Pisin vocabulary comes from English, though it also includes words from German, Portuguese and a number of Austronesian languages such as Tolai and Malay.