Hiri Motu

Hiri Motu
Police Motu
RegionPapua New Guinea
Native speakers
(Very few cited 1992)[1]
100,000 L2 speakers (2021)[1]
Latin script
Official status
Official language in
Papua New Guinea
Language codes
ISO 639-1ho
ISO 639-2hmo
ISO 639-3hmo
Glottologhiri1237

Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of its capital city, Port Moresby.[2]

It is a simplified version of Motu, from the Austronesian language family. Although it is strictly neither a pidgin nor a creole, it possesses some features from both language types. Phonological and grammatical differences make Hiri Motu not mutually intelligible with Motu. The languages are lexically very similar, and retain a common, albeit simplified, Austronesian syntactical basis. It has also been influenced to some degree by Tok Pisin.

Even in the areas where it was once well established as a lingua franca, the use of Hiri Motu has been declining in favour of Tok Pisin and English for many years. The language has some statutory recognition.[note 1]

  1. ^ a b Hiri Motu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Hiri Motu | language | Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 28 April 2022.


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