I found this video of a woman reciting the opening to Genesis in Tok Pisin, and it struck me as really interesting. The repetition in the verses is likely what's key to this, but if at first upon hearing it you're bewildered, about halfway through you realize that you can understand what she's saying.
The history behind the language is interesting, too. Interacting with English speakers created a language that unified a geographic area that was rich in individual languages with no common tongue.
> if at first upon hearing it you're bewildered, about halfway through you realize that you can understand what she's saying.
As a non-native English speaker, this is basically my experience watching some movies (where the characters speak with regional dialects). The first 10 minutes I feel like the actors are mumbling and then after 20 or so minutes I have no problem keeping up anymore.
Also what it feels like when someone with an accent is holding a lecture at my university.
It took me longer for British accents to become intelligible; I think it took about a season of Top Gear before I no longer had to rewind certain portions or listen very actively to understand what was being said.
I'm kind of the same when watching Shakespeare. Takes about 10 minutes and then my brain snaps into the right mode to more easily follow what is being said.
The Bible text might have more loanwords from standard English than other texts in Tok Pisin do, though. For example, right at the beginning she says "spirit", which I suspect came into Tok Pisin through a conscious borrowing by a Bible translator or missionary.
it seems quite challenging to follow, even knowing a couple of Tok Pisin words. But maybe it would be different if it were read aloud, or maybe the woman in the video you found is reciting a version that uses vocabulary that's especially close to English?
Pulled my English<->Tok Pisin dictionary[1] off the shelf and took a look. For this context (referring to God) Spirit or Holi Spirit is correct.
Reading Tok Pisin is definitely harder than hearing it for the novice, IMO. The spelling is much more phonetic while your brain still wants to pick out the (sometimes heavily accented) English words it recognises.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laTpd2ofjKg
The history behind the language is interesting, too. Interacting with English speakers created a language that unified a geographic area that was rich in individual languages with no common tongue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin#Development_of_Tok_P...