MOTA MUST GO.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18620, 16 July 1930, Page 12

MOTA MUST GO.

WEIRD PIDGIN ENGLISH. “What name this fellow belong you?” is a portmanteau expression in Solomon Island pidgin English that may refer to- anything from a hat to an antimacassar. Naturally a person that speaks a lingo like that is rather handicapped when it comes to doing trade with people who speak real English. Much good educational work has been done by the Melanesian Mision. but up to the present the school language has been Mota. The tongues of the Solomons are as the tongues of Babel at any rate, there are languages in the group. Many years ago the mission picked on the language of the island of Mota as a medium of communication between the scattered units of its vast field, and it became the standard mission language of the group just as French used to be the standard language of diplomacj r among the nations.

But a new need has arisen to-day (says the Auckland “Star”). The Rev. S. G. Caulton, who arrived by the mission steamer Southern Cross this week, is in charge of the central mission school at Ugi, a small island in the southern part of the group. He is on a brief furlough after a year's work down there. He speaks enthusiastically about the work that is being done at the school, and says the idea is to develop a brotherhood among the boys, so that when they went back to their different islands they would heal old

feuds, and gradually evangelise the people. Natives Handicapped “The question the mission will now have to face,” said Mr Caulton, “iS’ whether the use of Mota will be continued, or whether it will be substituted by English. It is at present the policy of the mission to teach Mota to the pupils at the school at Ugi, and Mota is the language by which generally communication is kept up. Every year the islands are coming more and more in contact with white people, and the natives feel themselves at a great disadvantage in not being able to speak English. It must be remembered that we have to teach the native to take his place in the world of to-day. as well as teach him the Gospel. For the sake of the natives themselves, I think the mission will have to adopt English as the language of the school, and that it will take the place of the Mota language that has been the recognised means of communication for so long. Mota Very Limited “Naturally the Glder members of the mission are rather averse to doing away with the familiar Mota language, but we must move with the times, and the times demand that English should be taught. At present the teaching of English is very much of a side line'with us; I can see the time when it will be the recognised official language of the mission. There are many reasans why it should be so. In the mota language, for instance the literature is very limited; only a few books that have been translated by the mission for the use i of the natives. So that for the purposes of general education the Mota tongue is not at all suitable. We must fit the native to face present conditions, and they certainly require that he should know English. The pidgin English that is now current in the group is hopeless perversion, and the sooner it is done away with the better for all.”