Tok Pisin in the context of "Pacific Islands Forum"

Melanesians are the predominant and Indigenous inhabitants of Melanesia, in an area stretching from New Guinea to the Fiji Islands. Most speak one of the many languages of the Austronesian language family (especially ones in the Oceanic branch) or one of the many unrelated families of Papuan languages. There are several creoles of the region, such as Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, Solomon Islands Pijin, Bislama, and Papuan Malay.

The Indigenous peoples of Western New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, commonly called Papuans, are Melanesians. There is genetic evidence for two major historical lineages in New Guinea and neighboring islands: a first wave from the Malay Archipelago perhaps 50,000 years ago when New Guinea and Australia were a single landmass called Sahul and, much later, a wave of Austronesian people from the north who introduced Austronesian languages and pigs about 3,500 years ago. They also left a small but significant genetic trace in many coastal Papuan peoples.

Linguistically, Papuans speak languages from the many families of non-Austronesian languages that are found only on New Guinea and neighboring islands, as well as Austronesian languages along parts of the coast, and recently developed creoles such as Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, Unserdeutsch, and Papuan Malay.

Port Moresby (/ˈmɔːrzbi/ ; Tok Pisin: Pot Mosbi), also referred to as Pom City or simply Moresby, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the largest cities in the southwestern Pacific (along with Jayapura) outside of Australia and New Zealand. It is located on the shores of the Gulf of Papua, on the south-western coast of the Papuan Peninsula of the island of New Guinea. The city emerged as a trade centre in the second half of the 19th century. During World War II, it was a prime objective for conquest by the Imperial Japanese forces during 1942–43 as a staging point and air base to cut off Australia from Southeast Asia and the Americas. Due to its population and outsized influence compared to other cities in Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby may be regarded as a primate city.

As of the 2011 census, Port Moresby had 364,145 inhabitants. This grew to 756,754 at the 2024 census. The place where the city was founded has been inhabited by the Motu-Koitabu people for centuries. The first Briton to see it was Royal Navy Captain John Moresby in 1873. It was named in honour of his father, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby.

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.

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.

Bougainville (/ˈboʊɡənvɪl/ BOH-gən-vil; Tok Pisin: Bogenvil), officially the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (Tok Pisin: Otonomos Region bilong Bogenvil), is an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea. The largest island is Bougainville Island, while the region also includes Buka Island and a number of outlying islands and atolls. The provisional capital is Buka, on Buka Island.

In 2024, the region had an population of 367,093. The lingua franca of Bougainville is Tok Pisin, while a variety of Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages are also spoken. The region includes several Polynesian outliers where Polynesian languages are spoken. Geographically, the islands of Bougainville and Buka form part of the Solomon Islands archipelago, but they are politically separate from the independent country of Solomon Islands. Historically, Bougainville and Buka, together with the islands of Choiseul, Santa Isabel, the Shortlands, and Ontong Java, which are all now part of the country of Solomon Islands, formed the German Solomon Islands Protectorate, the geographical area later being referred to as the North Solomon Islands.

New Ireland (Tok Pisin: Niu Ailan), or Latangai, is a large island in Papua New Guinea, approximately 7,404 km (2,859 sq mi) in area with c. 120,000 people. It is named after the island of Ireland. It is the largest island of New Ireland Province, lying northeast of the island of New Britain. Both islands are part of the Bismarck Archipelago, named after Otto von Bismarck, and they are separated by Saint George's Channel.

The administrative centre of the island and of New Ireland province is the town of Kavieng located at the northern end of the island. While the island was part of German New Guinea, it was named Neumecklenburg ("New Mecklenburg").

Pijin (Solomonese Pidgin) is a language spoken in Solomon Islands. It is closely related to Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea and Bislama of Vanuatu; the three varieties are sometimes considered to be dialects of a single Melanesian Pidgin language. It is also related to Torres Strait Creole of Torres Strait, though more distantly.

In 1999 there were 307,000 second- or third-language speakers with a literacy rate in first language of 60%, a literacy rate in second language of 50%.

Unserdeutsch ('Our German'), or Rabaul Creole German, is a German-based creole language that originated in Papua New Guinea as a lingua franca. The substrate language is assumed to be Tok Pisin, while the majority of the lexicon is from German.