Hiri Motu language

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Hiri Motu
Spoken in:	Papua New Guinea
Total speakers:	120,000
Language family:	Pidginization of True Motu.
Official status
Official language of:	Papua New Guinea
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	`ho`
ISO 639-2:	`hmo`
ISO 639-3:	`hmo`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Hiri Motu, Police Motu or Pidgin Motu is an official language of Papua New Guinea. It is a pidgin based primarily on Motu; phonology and grammar differences mean that Hiri Motu speakers cannot understand Motu, though the languages are lexically very similar.

It has both Austronesian and Papuan dialects; the latter is considered to be the standard.

[edit] References

Dutton, Tom (1985). Police Motu: Iena Sivarai (its story). Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea: The University of Papua New Guinea Press.
Lister-Turner, R and Clark, J.B. (1931), A Dictionary of the Motu Language of Papua, 2nd Edition (P. Chatterton, ed). Sydney, New South Wales: Government Printer.
Lister-Turner, R and Clark, J.B. (1931), A Grammar of the Motu Language of Papua, 2nd Edition (P. Chatterton, ed). Sydney, New South Wales: Government Printer.
Brett, Richard; Brown, Raymond; Brown, Ruth and Foreman, Velma. (1962), A Survey of Motu and Police Motu. Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea: Summer Institute of Linguistics.