"Wok long rot..."

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Cool Breeze

#536403 Thu, 03 Jul 08 09:27 PM

I read an article dealing with Pidgin English in a book. There is an illustration, a picture of a sign that says: "WOK LONG ROT OL KAR MAS STOP SAPOS YU LUKIM RED PELA MAK." It is supposed to mean: Work on road! All cars must stop when you see the red sign.

Long may mean on or along. What I don't know is what sapos and pela mean. Mak is probably mark? I assume that lukim has something to do with looking unless someone can come up with a better explanation.

Cheers, CB

Cool Breeze

Joined on Fri, Apr 7 2006

Helsinki, Finland

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Mr Wordy

#536444 Thu, 03 Jul 08 11:26 PM

I am not an expert on this, so I'm only guessing...

Google search throws up http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=2&nav=messages&webtag=ab-german2&tid=987. Did you see that?

My guess (which agrees with some of the suggestions at the linked discussion):

Work along road -- all cars must stop suppose (=if) you look-him (=see) red fellow mark.

I'm not very clear what "red fellow mark" means. Is it a red picture of a man? (Though this doesn't seem particularly likely as a stop sign?). Or maybe "pela = fellow" is just used to mean "thing", or almost meaninglessly?

Mr Wordy

Joined on Tue, May 27 2008

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Native British English speaker

Cool Breeze

#536559 Fri, 04 Jul 08 07:48 AM

Thank you for you comments, Mr Wordy. The idea that I might google for this "sentence" never crossed my mind!

Cool Breeze