It was something I learned in years in PNG, both as a kid 45 yrs ago, and as an adult. Historical texts show that the "ch" sound in German was borrowed into the language as "k" One example of this is the early Tok Boi "kirke" from the German "kirche". Ptcamn 12:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC) Not necessarily. Colin RichardsonĬan we get a citation for this? Männchen is pronounced, which I would expect to be adapted to Tok Pisin phonology as something like mensen, not manki. In the case of meri the failure to change it to woman was abysmal - it is too deeply entrenched, and meri is heard everywhere still. It is usually replaced by haus man or haus meri. Manki-masta was supposed to be replaced by domestik - which never caught on. In the case of manki they have largely succeeded - it has been largely replaced by pikinini (curiously, derived from the Portuguese "pequenino" - meaning the same thing!) - though manki is still widespread as an equivalent to "kids". In the 1980s, there was a governmental initiative to try and eradicate the use of manki, manki-masta and meri, all perceived as derogatory. Due to the distance from the German era, and the dying out of the older generation, most PNG people today believe it derived from English "monkey", and naturally tend to object to its use.
A male domestic worker assigned to mind the boss' kids was called manki-masta - the boss of the kids. Manki derived from the rather paternalistic put-down German word, männchen (little man) - and until the 1980s was the common Tok Pisin word for a child. As the German influence has faded it is often forgotten that many Tok Pisin words had their origin in the German colonial era in New Britain and northern New Guinea. It is not derived from English "monkey" as is commonly believed.
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