1800–1860 During the early nineteenth century, an English
jargon, known as
Beach-la-Mar, developed and spread through the Western Pacific as a language used among traders (
lingua franca) associated with the
whaling industry at the end of the 18th century, the
sandalwood trade of the 1830s, and the
bêche-de-mer trade of the 1850s.
1860–1880 Between 1863 and 1906,
blackbirding was used for the
sugar cane plantation labour trade in
Queensland,
Samoa,
Fiji and
New Caledonia. At the beginning of the trade period, the Australian planters started to recruit in the
Loyalty Islands early 1860s,
Gilbert Islands and the
Banks Islands around the mid-1860s,
New Hebrides and the
Santa Cruz Islands in the early 1870s, and
New Ireland and
New Britain from 1879 when recruiting became difficult. Around 13,000 Solomon Islanders were taken to Queensland during this labour trade period. The (
Kanaka) pidgin language was used on the plantations and became the lingua franca spoken between Melanesian workers (the Kanakas, as they were called) and European overseers. When Solomon Islanders came back to the Solomons at the end of their contract, or when they were forcibly repatriated at the end of the labour trade period (1904), they brought pidgin to the Solomon Islands. Old people today still remember the stories that were told by the old former Queensland hands many years after their return
1880–1900 Plantation languages continued into the 20th century even though the process of blackbirding had ceased. Due to the changing nature of labour traffic there was a divergence of Samoan plantation Pijin and New Guinea
Tok Pisin and also other plantation Pijin and Oceanic Pijins such as
Bislama and Solomon Pijin.
After 1900 In 1901, there were approximately 10,000 Pacific Islanders working in Australia, most in the sugar cane industry in Queensland and northern New South Wales, many working as
indentured labourers. The
Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901,
Parliament of Australia was the facilitation instrument used to deport approximately 7,500 Pacific Islanders. Up until 1911 approximately 30,000 Solomon Islanders were indentured labourers to Queensland, Fiji, Samoa and New Caledonia. The use of Pijin by churches and missionaries assisted in the spread of Pijin. With Pax Britannica and the advent of the local plantation system in the Solomon Islands, the use of Pijin was reactivated and the language started to spread in the country. It also acquired more Solomonic linguistic characteristics. Throughout the 20th century Pijin kept spreading: historical events such as Maasina Rule and WWII, and social changes such as urbanisation, played a central role in the transformation of the language. It is now the lingua franca of the country, though it has no official status.
2000s Despite being the lingua franca of Solomon Islands, Pijin remains a spoken language with little to no effort made thus far on the part of the national government toward standardising its orthography and grammar. Efforts at standardisation have been made by Christian Associations such as SITAG. There exists a partial dictionary since 1978 (Simons and Young 1978), a full dictionary of Pijin since 2002 (Jourdan 2002), a spelling list (Beimers 2010) and a complete description of its grammar (Beimers 2009). This being the case, Pijin remains a very flexible language where the main focus is on message delivery irrespective of the niceties of formal sentence construction. A translation of the Bible into Pijin also represents a standardisation of some aspects of Pijin. == Pronunciation ==