Bemé

Bemé
Poccasin Creole / Poccasin Pidgin / Poccasinese
bemeh / bemetak / kriyal
Flag of the Poccasin Federation, where Bemé is the official language
Pronunciation	[bemɛ]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2025
Setting	Adventures in the Poccasins
Native to	Poccasin Archipelago
Ethnicity	Poccasins
Native speakers	15 million (2025)
Language family	Poccasin English Bemé
Standard form	Bemetak
Dialects	Bijun Creole Columbé
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Poccasin Federation
Regulated by	Tak eh Bemeh!

Bemé (/bəˈmeɪ̯/ buh-MAY; bemeh, pronounced [bemɛ]), also called Poccasin Creole, Poccasin Pidgin and Poccasinese, is an English creole and pidgin language spoken in the Poccasin Archipelago. It is widely spoken as a first language in Cassim Po and is by far the predominantly spoken language in many other urban areas in the Poccasins, though elsewhere in the archipelago it only holds pidgin language status, exclusively used to communicate between people of separate ethnicites; as such, it is not used at home in most of these areas.

Despite this varying status, Bemé is by far the most spoken language of the Poccasin Archipelago with around 15 million speakers as of 2025; native speakers with Bemé as their mother tongue, primarily inhabiting Cassim Po, number around 14,565. This high amount of speakers can be mostly attributed to two factors: extensive British and later American colonisation, as well as widespread teaching of the language. Bemé is an official language and designated lingua franca of the Poccasin Federation, ensuring its continuous widespread usage after independence.

This article describes the variety of Bemé that is spoken in the Poccasin Federation; other major varieties/dialects of Bemé include Bijun Creole(native to the Bijuns of Bijou Island) and Columbé(of the people of Saint Columban).

Etymology

The name Bemé is derived from the Kabao phrase beme po kasin, literally meaning "nation of the red mountain", it is also the origin of the English exonym Poccasin and Poccasinese.

Beme vs Bemé

The words Beme and Bemé, both derived from Kabao beme, mean two distinct things in English. Beme, (/ˈbɛmeɪ̯/ or /ˈbɛmiː/, BEH-may or BEH-mee) without the accent, is the widely used endonym of citizens of the Poccasin Federation; in the Poccasins specifically, bemeh in this context is mostly used to refer to the Poccasin federative government, akin to referring to the British government as simply "Westminster".

In contrast, Bemé, (/bəˈmeɪ̯/ buh-MAY) with an accent, is exclusively used in English to refer to the Bemé language. However, in Bemé itself, both bemeh "nation" and bemeh "Bemé" are homophones and homonyms, and their differing meanings is only discerned by context, such as:

Yu bemeh wan, yu wan bi dan, ni grown bela skey.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven." (Matthew 6:10)

versus

Takin bemeh gud la?

"Do you speak Bemé well?"

However, in recent years, some internet users have, through hypercorrection, started orthographically distinguishing the two meanings by capitalising bemeh "Bemé" as Bemeh or in some cases BEMEH, as is common in many indigenous languages of the Poccasins. However, this is generally considered non-standard.

Kriyal

Kriyal ([kɹ̥ijal], [tɹ̥ijal] or [tʃɹ̥ijal]) is a less commonly used term, and is derived from the English word creole. Although originally referring to the entire language in the same manner as Bemé/Bemeh, nowadays it is mostly used to refer to basilectal varieties of the language, though older speakers may still refer to the language as a whole as kriyal.

The word kriyal(sometimes spelt kriyel in Columban) is also used by Columbé and Bijun Creole speakers to refer to their own varieties of Bemé.

Tak vs kriyal

Bemé incorporates a creole continuum, but unlike other creole continua such as that of Jamaican Patois, Bemé speakers do not consider the continuum to have mesolectal levels, instead only distinguishing between acrolectal tak and basilectal kriyal. Tak is often described as the official government Bemé, used on street signs, government buildings and in most Bemé literature, while kriyal is often described as the vernacular forms of Bemé spoken outside of the contexts of Tak. For example, the vernacular Bemé of young people can be considered kriyal; but the use of Bemé by older, illiterate speakers may also be considered kriyal.

However, a key difference between older and younger speakers is the presence of code-switching; younger speakers are much more likely to be adept at code-switching between tak and kriyal depending on context, as opposed to older, traditionally less educated speakers who can't code-switch and as such whose speech may be permanently considered kriyal. This factor has been considered one of many causes of ageism in the Poccasin workforce, where older job applicants who exclusively speak in what is considered kriyal may be discriminated against compared to younger job applicants who are capable of speaking in more formal tak.

Patois

Bemé patois, (Bemé: patwa, patwa tak) or simply patois, is a register of Bemé used in poetry. It features a more lenient word order, as well as the ability to "degrade" words into fewer syllables for the sake of poetic clarity or rhyme. Additionally, nominative pronouns ending in vowels may "merge" into the following verb or particle if the verb starts with a vowel or the particle is eh, so mi ogul [mi ogul] "I see, I look at" becomes m'ogul [mogul], or mi eh wosh "I am washing" [mi ɛ woʃ] becomes m'eh wosh [mɛ woʃ].

Orthography

Most Bemé speakers use the Caine orthography, invented by Charlie F. Caine, the first American ambassador to the Poccasin Federation. Caine allegedly invented the orthography while on a particularly long plane ride to Cassim Po, basing the phoneme-grapheme correspondence on the phonology of urban Cassim Po Bemé, of which he was most accustomed to. As such, Caine's orthography has sometimes been criticised for contributing to urbocentrism in the Poccasin Federation.

However, the Caine orthography has also conversely been praised for contributing to the standardisation of the Bemé language. Its lack of diacritics also proved beneficial in the early days of the Information Age, as the entire standard Bemé language could be displayed using only ASCII, at a time where many languages such as Chinese or Japanese could not be effectively represented on computers before the introduction of Unicode in 1988.

Consonants Bemé orthography IPA Examples English approximation b b bemeh bow ch tʃ chena China d d dan done g g gud good gr gɹ~dʒɹ grinyeh grill or drink h h (initial) hampo ham ʔ (medial) jihad uh-oh j dʒ jamis jeans k k kaneh king kr tɹ̥~kɹ̥~tʃɹ̥ kriyal krill or tree l l kolo lid m m ameh mother n n dampini nice ng ŋ kring swimming ny ɲ snyek canyon p p dampini spin r ɹ ridem rhythm s s sebis service sh ʃ shik shine t t titrink tea w w wan want y j yu you

Vowels Bemé orthography IPA Examples English approximation a a jamis trap e e bemeh may eh ɛ bemeh bed i i bi eat o o kolo yawn u u yu hook Diphthongs Bemé orthography IPA Examples English approximation ey ei̯ skey may oi oi̯ woiwoi joy ow ou̯ grown bow

The distinction between /kr tr tʃr/, as well as between /gr dʒr/, has been historically neutralised, leading to a varying pronunciation:

• ⟨kr⟩ may be heard as /tɹ̥ kɹ̥ tʃɹ̥/;
• In the most basilectal(Kriyal) varieties, the stop may be simply strongly aspirated, leaving /tʰː kʰː tʃʰː/;
• The realisation may be aspirated retroflex /ʈʰ/, and similarly affricated to /ʈʂ ʈʂʰ/.

The pronunciation of ⟨gr⟩ is less variable; there still exists a distinction between /gr~dʒr/ and /dr/, though /dr/ is extremely rare and only exists in certain words, such as grag "stop (v.)" and drag "drag queen".

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Alveolo-palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k	(ʔ)
	voiced	b	d	dʒ	g
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative			s	ʃ		h
Approximant	semivowel	w	ɹ	j
	lateral		l

/t d/ both become /t̚/ (no audible release) in word-final coda positions, so dat is pronounced [dat̚] while data is pronounced with audible release as [data]. This allophonic variation without audible release has also been described as dentalised; thus, words like dat have also been transcribed as [dat̪̚].

Unlike in English, /ŋ/ can appear in onset positions, such as in ngos "nose". The palatal nasal /ɲ/ usually occurs when differentiating between words that would be homophones in standard English, e.g. nap vs knap, which in Bemé became nap "rest (v.)" and nyap "punch (v.)".

Syllabic /l̩/ appears in a few words, such as Beybl [bei̯bl̩] "Bible" and teybl [tei̯bl̩] "table".

/ɲ/ is the only consonant that cannot appear in a coda position; typically, this is circumvented by adding /ɛ/ or /a/ postpositionally, so grin becomes grinyeh.

Nasal assimilation

"Nasal assimilation" in Bemé refers to a sandhi process where the alveolar nasal /n/ (corresponding with the graphemes ⟨Nn⟩) is shifted to a different nasal before certain obstruents. This process varies among Bemé dialects; the differences between major dialects are shown in the following table.

		Obstruents
		/p/	/b/	/t/	/d/	/tʃ/	/dʒ/	/k/	/g/	/s/	/ʃ/	/h/
Nasal	Bemé	/m/		/n/				/ŋ/		/n/		/m/
	Bijun									/n/	/ɲ/
	Columbé			/n/		/ɲ/						-

The placement of /n/ before /h/ only occurs in one word: Anhara, a girl's name of Sasubi origin (Sasubi: انخارا); the /n/ is pronounced as a bilabial nasal [m] in standard Bemé and Bijun but not pronounced whatsoever in Columbé, instead giving /ahaɾa/ or /aːhaɾa/(the first /a/ may be lengthened to compensate for a lack of a /n/). In the original Sasubi, the name is pronounced [ɐŋxɐˈra].

Vowels

		Front	Back
Close		i	u
Mid	Close-mid	e	o
	Open-mid	(ɛ)
Open		a

There are only three diphthongs in Bemé: /ei̯ oi̯ ou̯/, written ⟨ey, oi, ow⟩ respectively. However, although these diphthongs may roughly match with similar English diphthongs /eɪ̯ oɪ̯ oʊ̯/, these diphthongs rarely match; diphthongs in general are rare in Bemé, but even with words derived from English words with diphthongs, the diphthongs are often replaced with monophthongs, e.g. shek [ʃek], compared to English shake /ˈʃeɪ̯k/. In kriyal varieties diphthongs may be entirely replaced by monophthongs, so words like skey [skei̯] become [skɛ].

Leleh

Leleh or lelé (with leleh: [lelɛ]; without: [lele]) is a Bemé word describing the distinction between /e/ and /ɛ/ in a Bemé dialect. Leleh is present in Bemetak, as well as in all Cassim Po dialects; it is also present in Bijun Creole, though the distinction occurs instead between /i/ and /ɛ/ as /e/ merges with /i/.

However, some kriyal dialects especially in the south do not have leleh; instead, /ɛ/ merges with /e/ or another phoneme, though the pronunciation of the resultant phoneme is variable. Examples of dialects that lack leleh include most Southern Seru dialects as well as Columbé; in the case of Columbé specifically, /ɛ/ is pronounced /e/.

Grammar

Bemé does not mark grammatical number, gender or case in most places.

Pronouns

Demonstratives

	Proximal		Distal
	det.	pron.	det.	pron.
Singular	dis	dis	dat	dat
Plural		dis dem		dat dem

Demonstratives in Bemé only inflect on number as pronouns; demonstrative determiners are not inflected on anything apart from proximity.

Personal

		Singular	Paucal	Plural*
1st	nominative	mi	wi kri	wi
	possessive		wey kri	wey
2nd	nominative	yu	yu kri	yu dem, yem, tuka, ka
	possessive			tukeh, keh
3rd	nominative	im, em	imim, emem	dem, ndem, nem
	possessive			dey, dem, deya, ja

*Plural pronouns are written in order from common in tak to common in kriyal.

im, although derived from the gendered English word him, is ungendered and can be roughly translated to "he", "she", "it" or singular "they" depending on context. Older speakers may use shi or shya/shiya (all from English she) in the same way as she is used in English, but this word is functionally obsolete in modern Bemé (at best archaic in patois).

"Paucal" pronouns refer to groups of people, as in wi kri would mean "some of us", yu kri means "some of you all", etc. Paucal pronouns are thought to have been borrowed from Dadaareg, constructed by a combination of pronoun + kri (lit. "three"), as is typical for paucal pronouns in Dadaareg(tanuk, penuk, lolonuk). The third-person paucal pronoun, imim/emem, is thought to have been derived via Ketaserang reduplication, a feature typical of Ketaserang for forming plural pronouns.

Tuka, ka, tukeh and keh are all taken from the Yabo languages, all of which have pronouns along the lines of toka or tokeq.

Interrogatives

Bemé interrogatives are derived from the word wa "what", from English what.

English	Bemé
who	wa mang
what	wa
which	wa dem
when	wa wen
why	wanyu
where	wa deh
how	wa dan
how much	wa pis

Numerals

Bemé numerals from 0-9 are as follows:

Number	Bemé	English translation
0	siro	zero
1	wan	one
2	tu	two
3	kri	three
4	pow	four
5	payeh	five
6	sis	six
7	sibeng	seven
8	eyt	eight
9	nyen	nine

Numbers after 9 tend to deviate from the English norm, with the structure of two-digit number + one-digit number instead of the opposite order which gave rise to the English numbers thirteen, fourteen, fifteen... etc.

Number	Bemé	English translation
10	teng	ten
11	teng wan	eleven
12	teng tu	twelve
13	teng kri	thirteen
14	teng pow	fourteen
15	teng payeh	fifteen
16	teng sis	sixteen
17	teng sibeng	seventeen
18	teng eyt	eighteen
19	teng nyen	nineteen

Multiples of ten follow the opposite order; here are a couple for you to get the idea.

Number	Bemé	English translation
20	tuteng	twenty
30	kriteng	thirty
40	powteng	forty
50	pateng	fifty

Pateng "fifty" is a single exception to the rule, and is simply derived from payeh + teng.

Verbs

The Bemé verbal paradigm, shown on the regular verb it is as follows:

	Indicative		Continuous		Conditional
	intrans.	trans.	intrans.	trans.	intrans.	trans.
Present	it	itin	eh it	eh itin	la it	la itin
Past	dan it	dan itin	eh dan it	eh dan itin	la dan it	la dan itin
Future	wan it	wan itin	eh wan it	eh wan itin	la wan it	la wan itin

Transitivity

Similarly to Tok Pisin, verbs are made transitive by the suffix -in. The suffix is only not placed after a transitive verb when the verb is imperative.

Tense, aspect and mood

The completive aspect is shown by the lemma dampini(from English *done finish), as in im wak dampini "he worked", while the continuous aspect is shown with eh before the verb, as in im eh wak "he is working". Dampini also means "finished, completed" as an adjective, and is one of few postpositional adjectives in Bemé, as in ombewak dampini "finished homework".

Bemé has two officially marked tenses: past and future, marked by the particles dan and wan respectively, as in mi dan itin bitel "I ate food" vs mi wan itin bitel "I will eat food".

The imperative mood is expressed by placing eh after the verb, which cannot take the transitive suffix -in or a personal pronoun.

Negation

Negation on verbs is done by putting na or neh before the verb. Tak eh Bemeh! states that na should be used for intransitive verbs, while neh should be used with transitive verbs, a pattern which is typical of most first-language speakers in Cassim Po. However, elsewhere, in kriyal varieties, na and neh are virtually interchangeable.

Copula

The Bemé copula is bi, from English be, though this can be turned into an existential verb by placing eh before the copula. In kriyal varieties, it is customary to omit the copula in most cases, especially before an adjective. However, the copula is never omitted in tak.

Polysemants

See Category:Bemé polysemants for a full list of polysemants.

"Polysemants" (Bemé: polisemang, [polisemaŋ]; not to be confused with polisimang "police officer") in Bemé refer to various common lemmas in the Bemé language whose morphological categorisation are vague due to their wide uses and applications; thus, they are broadly categorised as "polysemants", literally meaning "words with various meanings". The most common polysemant by far is eh. The etymology of most polysemants are unknown; however, one exception is bela, which comes from Ketaserang beela [ˈbɛːlɐ] "I agree".

Word derivation

Bemé only has specific word derivation rules when deriving a word from an already existing word of a different class; for example, from a verb to a noun. In that case, the prefix e-(possibly derived from English indefinite article a) is added, as in shwim "to swim" > eshwim "pool".

Swadesh

The following table shows the official Swadesh list provided by Tak eh Bemeh!.

Example texts

Historical texts

The Lord's Prayer

This extract is taken from the Bemeh Beybl, verses Matru 6:9-13, adapted from the New International Version by Abo Patrick "Pati" Babel.

Wey Abo ni skey, yu neym bi bles.
Yu bemeh wan, yu wan bi dan, ni grown bela skey.
Gib o wi dis dey wey deydey krom, an solisin wey badsin bela wi solisin dem eh badsinin wi.
An na tekin o wi ni temteshan ba tekin o wi eweh badbad.
Amen.

For the Columbé translation by Papa James Nisang aMateyungo, see Columbé § The Lord's Prayer.

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction is an American 1994 independent crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino. In the Poccasin Archipelago, Pulp Fiction constitutes a large part of the modern Poccasin cultural zeitgeist; the film is endlessly referenced everywhere, from film, literature, video games, advertisements and even haircuts; the "Binsencha" haircut, popular during the 90s and early 00s in the Poccasin Archipelago, is based on the haircut worn by Vincent Vega (John Travolta) in the film.

In particular, two sequences in the film are especially popular for homage; the Ezekiel 25:17 monologue, and the "Pigs are filthy animals" conversation.

Ezekiel 25:17

This extract is adapted from the Bemé translated subtitles of the original scene in Pulp Fiction. Due to the importance of the scene in the Poccasin cultural zeitgeist, the extract starts from where the passage most quoted; namely, where Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) asks Brett (Frank Whaley) if he reads the Bible. This extract is presented in screenplay format.

Jules: Yu ridin Beybl, Brett?

Brett: Yes!

Jules: Layeh, eh bi pasej mi dan rimemba. Eh la bela sicheh. Ezikiyel 25:17. Rowt di reychas mang bi eh srown ni eri pilang kas inekriti selepis mang, an tireni eh na gud mang.
Im bi bles, eh ni neym danguna an gud mek, eh shepedin na srong kru na ley bali, eh kas im rili im brada kipa mang, an payeh mang eh las kij. An mi wan bitop yu wit big rivenj an ril ebad, dat dem eh krey eh posoin an diskroi mi brada! An yu wan now mi neym bi Lowd, wen mi gibin mi rivenj ni yu!

"Pigs are filthy animals"

"Pigs are filthy animals" (not official name) is a duologue between the characters of Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta), where Jules explains why he does not eat pork.

Vincent: Yu wan pis bekun?

Jules: Neh mang, mi na itin pok.

Vincent: Yu bi yudim?

Jules: Neh mang, mi na yudim, mi jis na digin pok, lalo.

Vincent: Wa lek neh?

Jules: Pok bi deti edag. Mi na itin deti edag.

Vincent: Yeh, ba bekon tes gud. Pok chop tes gud.

Jules: Eh, syuwa mows la la tes bela pamking kek, ba mi wan neva now eh kas mi na la itin deti ting. Pok itin an stegin ni pyuk. Dat bi deti edag. Mi na itin na ting eh na ab komonsens eh gowadin im eh pyuk.

Vincent: Wa dan eh dag? Dag itin im eh pyuk.

Jules: Mi na itin dag nebla.

Vincent: Yeh, ba yu tink dag bi deti edag la?
(Beat.)

Jules: Mi na la wan inyeh po kalin dag deti edag, ba erili na pokres edag; ba, dag ab peson. Peson wan long weh.

Vincent: Ah, so kas dat risun, ey pok dan ab gud peson, im grag eh bi deti edag.

Jules: Eh, wi la mos takin eh wan neys teting pok, yameh, im mos bi teng tey pro neys den dat Arnold ni Green Acres!

Seventh Linguifex Relay

Bemé is taking part in the Seventh Linguifex Relay in seat 10. This section will be filled in once the relay ends.

See also

• Category:Bemé words
• Caine orthography