Papua New Guinea

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Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea Fast Facts: Here’s Number of people: how you say ... “How are you?” in Tok Pisin: Yu stap gut? (yoo stahp goot?) 7,732,000 Main language: Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, Papua New Guinean Sign Did you know? Language and English Main religion: Papua New Guinea takes up around half the island of New Guinea in the Pacific. Christianity The other half is part of Indonesia, a country in Asia. New Guinea is the second biggest island in the whole world! Only Greenland is bigger. The country of Papua Total # of languages: New Guinea is mostly made up of mountains and rainforests, but there are some 838 rolling hills and beaches too. The island is one of the least explored countries in the # of languages ... world because of how thick the rainforest is! In fact, people are still discovering new without any of the Bible: 462 animals, plants, people groups and languages all around the island. Here’s another cool fact — the smallest frog in the world, called the paedophryne amauensis, was with part of the Bible: 125 discovered in Papua New Guinea. It’s around the size of a fly! with a New Testament: 236 There are a LOT of languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. As you can see in with a whole Bible: 15 the fast facts section, there are so many languages that there isn’t just one main language spoken in the country — there are four! Papua New Guinea has the most languages that still need the Bible translated for them. More than 450 are still waiting for even a chapter of the Bible in their language. That’s more than any other country in the world! With over 800 languages spoken there, you can find everything from English to Chinese. That’s a lot of languages still waiting for the Bible and a lot of people who still need to hear about Jesus! Let’s pray! Dear Jesus, Thank you for all the people who live in Papua New Guinea. They speak a lot of different languages, and they might not be able to understand each other if they don’t speak the same one. But we know that you speak their language — all 838 of them! Please help people translate the Bible for all these people so that they can learn that you speak their language and want them to know about you. Then they can learn about how much you love them! We love you, Jesus, and we want everyone to get to know you in the language they understand best. MKTG4425.

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Abstract of Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania
Abstract of http://www.uog.ac.pg/glec/thesis/ch1web/ABSTRACT.htm Abstract of Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania by Glendon A. Lean In modern technological societies we take the existence of numbers and the act of counting for granted: they occur in most everyday activities. They are regarded as being sufficiently important to warrant their occupying a substantial part of the primary school curriculum. Most of us, however, would find it difficult to answer with any authority several basic questions about number and counting. For example, how and when did numbers arise in human cultures: are they relatively recent inventions or are they an ancient feature of language? Is counting an important part of all cultures or only of some? Do all cultures count in essentially the same ways? In English, for example, we use what is known as a base 10 counting system and this is true of other European languages. Indeed our view of counting and number tends to be very much a Eurocentric one and yet the large majority the languages spoken in the world - about 4500 - are not European in nature but are the languages of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. If we take these into account we obtain a quite different picture of counting systems from that of the Eurocentric view. This study, which attempts to answer these questions, is the culmination of more than twenty years on the counting systems of the indigenous and largely unwritten languages of the Pacific region and it involved extensive fieldwork as well as the consultation of published and rare unpublished sources.
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AMBAKICH [Aew]
Endangered languages listing: AMBAKICH [aew] Number of speakers: 770; Total population of language area: 1,964 (2003). Ambakich (also called Aion or Porapora) is a language spoken in the Angoram district of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Ambakich is classified as one of the “Grass” languages (Laycock 1973); these languages are now regarded as members of the “Lower Sepik-Ramu” family (Foley 2005). Ambakich speakers mostly live in villages along the Porapora River, which flows northward into the Sepik River. One village (Yaut) is located on the Keram River, southwest of the other villages. Speakers call their language “Ambakich”, whereas “Aion” is the name of the ethnic group. The population in 2003 was probably greater than the 1,964 reported. The language has SOV structure. An SIL survey in 2003 (Potter et al, forthcoming) found that Ambakich has very low vitality. While most adults were able to speak Ambakich, both children and youth spoke and understood Tok Pisin far better than Ambakich. Ambakich speakers report positive attitudes toward their language, stating they value it as an important part of their culture. However, parents use more Tok Pisin than Ambakich when speaking to their children. Communities verbally support the use of Ambakich in schools and teacher attitudes are positive; however teachers feel that the children are not learning the language because it is not being used in the home. Tok Pisin is used in all domains, including home, cultural, religious, social, legal, trade and other interactions with outsiders. Ambakich speakers are close neighbours to the Taiap language studied by Kulick (1992).
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Aspects of Tok Pisin Grammar
PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Senie� B - No. 66 ASPECTS OF TOK PIS IN GRAMMAR by Ellen B. Woolford Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Woodford, E.B. Aspects of Tok Pisin grammar. B-66, vi + 123 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1979. DOI:10.15144/PL-B66.cover ©1979 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. PACIFIC LINGUIS TICS is issued through the Lingui�tie Ci�ete 06 Canbe��a and consists of four series: SERIES A - OCCASIONAL PAPERS SERIES B - MONOGRAPHS SERIES C - BOOKS SERIES V - SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS EDITOR: S.A. Wurrn. ASSOCIATE EDITORS: D.C. Laycock, C.L. Voorhoeve, D.T. Tryon, T.E. Dutton. EDITORIAL ADVISERS: B. Bender, University of Hawaii J. Lynch, University of Papua D. Bradley, University of Melbourne New Guinea A. Capell, University of Sydney K.A. McElhanon, University of Texas S. Elbert, University of Hawaii H. McKaughan, university of Hawaii K. Franklin, Summer Institute of P. MUhlh�usler, Linacre College, Linguistics oxford W.W. Glover, Summer Institute of G.N. O'Grady, University of Linguistics victoria, B.C. G. Grace, University of Hawaii A.K. pawley, University of Hawaii M.A.K. Halliday, university of K. Pike, Univeraity of Michigan; Sydney Summer Institute of Linguistics A. Healey, Summer Institute of E.C. Pol orne, University of Texas Linguistics G. Sankoff, Universite de Montreal L. Hercus, Australian National E. Uhlenbeck, University of Leiden University J.W.M. Verhaar, University of N.D.
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GRAMMATICALIZATION in TOK PISIN Cindy Tung
GRAMMATICALIZATION IN TOK PISIN Cindy Tung WHAT IS TOK PISIN? Tok Pisin began as an English-based pidgin spoken by the majority of Papua New Guinea’s population, with many of these people speaking Tok Pisin as a L21, but the language is now classified as a creole. It is hard to pinpoint the exact definitions of the words “pidgin” and “creole,” as both are contact languages that are created out of circumstances where people cannot dialogue with their existing languages. The definition of a pidgin is “a system of communication which has grown up among people who do not share a common language [but desire communication]” (Crystal 2010: 344), and the primary distinction between a creole and a pidgin is that a creole is spoken as a native language and pidgins are only spoken as an L2. Pidgins also tend to be limited in scope, covering only a limited topic, often trade. As a language evolves from a pidgin to a creole, the vocabulary expands to cover more aspects of communication. Tok Pisin traces its history to the pidgin of Samoan plantations located roughly 2,500 miles west of Papua New Guinea. Under German plantation owners and colonial masters, native English input was unavailable, and vocabulary was incorporated into Tok Pisin by a strategy of its own, causing Tok Pisin to develop as a language without heavy English influence (Mühlhausler 2003: 5). Although the majority of the lexicon originates from English, German words were adopted into Tok Pisin during Germany’s rule of Papua New Guinea. Some of these words include beten ‘to pray’, raus ‘get lost’, and borim ‘to drill’ (Mühlhausler 2003: 27).
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A Central Buang Text 1
A CENTRAL BUANG TEXT 1 Bruce A. Hooley Summer Institute of Linguistics 1 Introduction This document presents a text in the Central Buang language with introductory notes on the phonology and grammar, and footnotes throughout to draw attention to particular features of the language. Data for the original study were collected by myself and my wife during several months of 1959 and 1960 while living in the village of Mapos under the auspices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Central Buang is a language of Melanesian stock 2, spoken by a group of about 4.500 people living along the valley of the Snake River about 30 air miles from Lae 3, in the Morobe Province of Papua of New Guinea. The Snake River lies approximately on a line running south-south- west from Lae towards the Government sub-district office at Mumeng, but sepa- rated from Lae by the Herzog range of mountains. The villages in the valley range from 3,000’–6,000’ in altitude. There are a number of cognate languages in the area, but those generally referred to as Buang are restricted to the valley of the Snake and comprise three main divi- sions. These are the headwaters dialect, the central dialect, and the Mangga Buang language. The central dialect, to which this paper refers, is spoken in the villages of Pepeḳnë, Seyuggee, Sëhayo, Saggee, Sebulek, Mapos I, Mapos II, Humeḳ, Römaröm and Wij. Data on which this paper is based were obtained chiefly from Mapos I. The story reproduced here was narrated to me by Yakutung 1 This document in its original form was presented in 1962 as a thesis in Linguistics to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.
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Organised Phonology Data
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The Yimas Language of New Guinea
The Yimas Language of New Guinea William A. Foley Stanford University Press Stanford, California Stanford University Press Stanford, California Copyright © 1991 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America of CIP data appear at the end the book For the Yimas people as they find their way in the modern world Preface This book is the result of a research project spread over some ten years and funded largely by the Australian Research Grants Scheme (Grant A176/15655), with some supplementary funding in 1985 from the Fac ulties Research Fund of the Australian National University. The goal of the project was a complete study of the Yimas language, its grammar and lexicon, the social and cultural contexts of the use of the language, its history and genetic relations, and its interactions with neighboring languages. Some of the results of this project have been reported in pre vious works, notably Foley (1986, 1988), but this book represents the most complete document on the language to date. Still to come are a Yimas dictionary and a volume of traditional legends, presented in Yi mas with Tok Pisin and English translations. Further, the result of the Yimas language project will play a central role in a long term research project I have just commenced-a reconstruction of the prehistory of the Sepik-Ramu basin, using largely linguistic data. The following grammar is not written in any set theoretical frame work. I wanted the organization of the grammar to reflect the structure of the language as closely as possible.
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A Sociolinguistic Survey of the Amio-Gelimi Language Area
DigitalResources Electronic Survey Report 2013-017 ® A Sociolinguistic Survey of the Amio-Gelimi Language Area Juliann Spencer, Sara Van Cott, and Bonnie MacKenzie A Sociolinguistic Survey of the Amio-Gelimi Language Area Juliann Spencer, Sara Van Cott and Bonnie MacKenzie SIL International® 2013 SIL Electronic Survey Report 2013-017, September 2013 © 2013 Juliann Spencer, Sara Van Cott, Bonnie MacKenzie, and SIL International® All rights reserved 1 Abstract In October of 2009 SIL conducted a survey of the Amio-Gelimi language, located in West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea. Amio-Gelimi is listed as Lesing-Gelimi [let] in the sixteenth edition of the Ethnologue and belongs to the East Arawe subgroup of Austronesian languages. The goals of the survey were to determine language and dialect boundaries and evaluate language vitality. Research was conducted through group interviews in each village in the language area, interviews with leaders of institutions in the area, collection of wordlists and observation. The findings of the survey indicate that Amio-Gelimi has two dialects and is spoken in four villages to the east of Gasmata: Amio, Kaskas, Atui and Poronga. Amio and Kaskas belong to the Amio dialect, while Atui and Poronga belong to the Gelimi dialect. The vitality of the Amio-Gelimi language is currently high. 2 Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Language location 1.2 Language name and classification 1.3 Population 1.4 Goals 2 Methodology 2.1 Tools 2.2 Sampling 2.3 Critique 3 Language and dialect boundaries 3.1 Previous research 3.2
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Even More Diverse Than We Had Thought: the Multiplicity of Trans-Fly Languages
Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication No. 5 (December 2012) Melanesian Languages on the Edge of Asia: Challenges for the 21st Century, ed. by Nicholas Evans and Marian Klamer, pp. 109–149 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/sp05/ 5 http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4562 Even more diverse than we had thought: The multiplicity of Trans-Fly languages Nicholas Evans Australian National University Linguistically, the Trans Fly region of Southern New Guinea is one of the least known parts of New Guinea. Yet the glimpses we already have are enough to see that it is a zone with among the highest levels of linguistic diversity in New Guinea, arguably only exceeded by those found in the Sepik and the north coast. After surveying the sociocultural setting, in particular the widespread practice of direct sister-exchange which promotes egalitarian multilingualism in the region, I give an initial taste of what its languages are like. I focus on two languages which are neighbours, and whose speakers regularly intermarry, but which belong to two unrelated and typologically distinct families: Nen (Yam Family) and Idi (Pahoturi River Family). I then zoom out to look at some typological features of the whole Trans-Fly region, exemplifying with the dual number category, and close by stressing the need for documentation of the languages of this fascinating region. 1. INTRODUCTION.1 The distribution of linguistic diversity is highly informative, about 1 My thanks to two anonymous referees and to Marian Klamer for their usefully critical comments on an
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Word Order Change in Papua New Guinea Austronesian
WORD ORDER CHANGE IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS AUGUST 1982 BY Joel Bradshaw Dissertation Committee: George W. Grace, Chairman Byron W. Bender Derek Bickerton Roderick A. Jacobs Michael Hamnett Anatole Lyovin Lawrence A. Reid We certify that we have read this dissertation and that in our opinion it is satisfactory in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics. DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Chairman ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people and institutions contributed to this work. The initial impetus to undertake the research came from George Grace and Andrew Pawley, principal investigators on the Oceanic Comparative Linguistics Project funded by National Science Foundation grant no. BNS 75-19451. That project made it possible for Peter Lincoln, Frank Lichtenberk, and myself to do fieldwork in Papua New Guinea in 1976. George Grace, Andrew Pawley, and Peter Lincoln have been my principal mentors as an Austronesianist. Pete instigated much of my thinking in this study. His wife Satoko provided invaluable help in getting this record of that thinking into proper shape. I have also profited from long discussions with Frank Lichtenberk, who has often done me the favor of being hard to convince. Among the many in Papua New Guinea who helped make the fieldwork a success, I wish to express particular gratitude to the Sawanga family--Yali (now deceased), Enike, and all their children--who looked after me in their village; and to Jeff Siegel, my host in Lae.
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The East Papuan Languages: a Preliminary Typological Appraisal
7KH(DVW3DSXDQ/DQJXDJHV$3UHOLPLQDU\7\SRORJLFDO 0LFKDHO'XQQ*HU35HHVLQN$QJHOD7HUULOO$SSUDLVDO Oceanic Linguistics, Volume 41, Number 1, June 2002, pp. 28-62 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\8QLYHUVLW\RI+DZDL L3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/ol.2002.0019 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ol/summary/v041/41.1dunn.html Access provided by Max Planck Digital Library (18 Feb 2016 13:04 GMT) The East Papuan Languages: A Preliminary Typological Appraisal Michael Dunn max planck institute for psycholinguistics, nijmegen Ger Reesink university of leiden and max planck institute for psycholinguistics, nijmegen Angela Terrill australia national university This paper examines the Papuan languages of Island Melanesia, with a view to considering their typological similarities and differences. The East Papuan lan- guages are thought to be the descendants of the languages spoken by the original inhabitants of Island Melanesia, who arrived in the area up to 50,000 years ago. The Oceanic Austronesian languages are thought to have come into the area with the Lapita peoples 3,500 years ago. With this historical backdrop in view, our paper seeks to investigate the linguistic relationships between the scattered Papuan lan- guages of Island Melanesia. To do this, we survey various structural features, including syntactic patterns such as constituent order in clauses and noun phrases and other features of clause structure, paradigmatic structures of pronouns, and the structure of verbal morphology. In particular, we seek to discern similarities between the languages that might call for closer investigation, with a view to estab- lishing genetic relatedness between some or all of the languages. In addition, in examining structural relationships between languages, we aim to discover whether it is possible to distinguish between original Papuan elements and diffused Austro- nesian elements of these languages.
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Matukar-Panau: a Case Study in Language Revitalization*
Matukar-Panau: A case study in language revitalization* Theresa Sepulveda Senior Linguistics Thesis Swarthmore College 2010 …we must do some serious rethinking of our priorities, lest linguistics go down in history as the only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90% of the very field to which it is dedicated. -Michael Krauss (1992), ―The world‘s languages in crisis‖ in Language 68 (1):10 Abstract This case study in language revitalization focuses on the Oceanic language of Matukar-Panau from Papua New Guinea. Recent work on a talking dictionary of Matukar in Swarthmore College‘s Laboratory for Endangered Languages Research and Documentation as well as the development of an orthography and first book in Matukar will be evaluated in terms of the viability of Matukar in the 21st century. I will first present the sociolinguistic background of Matukar in order to examine the extent and cause of Matukar‘s endangerment. Categories will include the history, geography, government recognition of, and demography of, Matukar and Matukar villagers (Tsunoda 2005). An emphasis will be placed on the reaction of the ethnic group of Matukar villagers to the growing dominance of Tok Pisin and the corresponding language shift (Dorian 1981). Next, I will examine the language endangerment phenomenon and define language death. In order to classify Matukar on a scale of language endangerment, I will describe Michael Krauss‘s (2007) and Joshua Fishman‘s (1991) classification systems of language vitality. I will then present Matukar‘s ratings based on UNESCO‘s document on language vitality and endangerment (2003). These systems provide a quantitative way to identify the characteristics of a dying language in areas such as age of speaker population, domains of language use, and availability of written material.
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