Languages of Papua New Guinea

By consulting data from Leland (1876) for Chinese Pidgin English (CP), I show that the word pasin in current Papua New Guinea Pidgin English (Tok Pisin, TP) is semantically (and perhaps historically) related to the word pidgin in CP. The accepted theory is that the term is “generally supposed” to be derived from “business”. In addition, I demonstrate that TP pasin is linked to “fashion” in CP, which, in turn, can often be interchanged with CP pidgin.