A Sociolinguistic Survey of Bebeli
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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languages of the Pacific region and it involved extensive fieldwork as well as the consultation of published and rare unpublished sources. -
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). -
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. -
DEVELOPMENT in PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Various Meanings in the Context of Logging in West New Britain
DEVELOPMENT IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA: various meanings in the context of logging in West New Britain Peter Nelson, B. A. (Hons. Anthropology), Grad. Dip. Ed. Submitted in fulfilment of a Master of Arts Degree by Research in the School of Australian and International Studies, Faculty of Arts, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia March 1999 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v PREFACE viii ONE Various Meanings Culture and world view 7 A villager's voice 14 Makapa 19 Development in the context of Logging 23 TWO Peoples of Pasismanua and development 35 Exchange 40 Environment and tradition in the Pasismanua region 49 Life in Melanesia 54 Areal cultures 63 The community 70 Governance and the community 72 A development debate 77 THREE Education 83 FOUR Human development: understanding the other 99 Notions of development: a new focusl04 Development and reciprocity 109 Self detennination 112 Sustainable and unsustainable 120 development Good governance 125 Labour and economy 128 Vision and culture 136 CONCLUSION 141 BmLIOGRAPHY 151 iv MAPS MAP I Rainforest opp. p.4 MAP 2 Towns and hamlets in the discussion opp. p.5 MAP 2(0) Dispersion o/main hamlets in Pasismanua opp. p.5 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE I Traditional integral agroforestry in opp. p.53 Melanesia APPENDIX List of technical expressions 164 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have helped in the marshalling of information and in deepening my understanding of Melanesia. My Supervisor, Dr. David Wetherell, exercised patience through several drafts of the writing. I thank him for his help. A major mover in the consultation process with peoples of tropical forests is Hartrnut Holzknecht, through his association with the Resource Owner Involvement movement of the Forest Management and Planning Project in PNG. -
Languages with Longer Words Have More Lexical Change Søren
Languages with longer words have more lexical change Søren Wichmann and Eric W. Holman 1. Introduction: Aims and data1 The findings to be presented in this paper were not anticipated, but came about as an unexpected result of looking at how the application of a version of the Levenshtein distance to word lists compares with cognate counting. We were interested in the degree to which the two correlate. The results of this investigation are intrinsically interesting and will be presented in the following section 2, but even more interesting is our finding that differ- ences between counting cognates and measuring the Levenshtein distances vary as a function of average word lengths in the word lists compared. This observation will occupy the remainder of the paper, with section 3 devoted to establishing the sta tis tical significance of the observation across language families, while section 4 establishes the significance within language groups, and section 5 discusses competing explanations. First we briefly explain the specific version of the Levenshtein distance used and the concept of cognate identification. In numerous previous papers, beginning in Holman et al. (2008a), the present authors as well as other members of the network of scholars partici- pating in the project known as ASJP (or Automated Similarity Judgment Pro gram) have applied a computer-assisted comparison of word lists in order to derive a measure of differences among languages. Our method consists in comparing pairs of words to determine the Levenshtein distance, LD, which is defined as the number of substitutions, insertions, and deletions necessary to transform one word into another. -
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). -
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. -
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 -
Vitu Grammar Sketch, Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages 51
Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages Volume 51 Vitu Grammar Sketch René van den Berg and Peter Bachet 2006 Summer Institute of Linguistics Ukarumpa, EHP Papers in the series Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages express the authors’ knowledge at the time of writing. They normally do not provide a comprehensive treatment of the topic and may contain analyses which will be modified at a later stage. However, given the large number of undescribed languages in Papua New Guinea, SIL-PNG feels that it is appropriate to make these research results available at this time. René van den Berg, Series Editor Copyright © 2006 Summer Institute of Linguistics Papua New Guinea [email protected] Published 2006 Printed by SIL Printing Press Ukarumpa, EHP Papua New Guinea ISBN 9980-0-3207-3 Table of Contents Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... viii Maps............................................................................................................................ix 1. Introduction.............................................................................................................1 1.1 Location and speakers......................................................................................1 1.2 Language name ................................................................................................1 1.3 Affiliation and earlier studies...........................................................................2 1.4 Dialects ............................................................................................................3 -
Internal Divisions of the Flores-Lembata Subgroup of Central Malayo
Internal divisions of the Flores-Lembata subgroup of Central Malayo-Polynesian Matthew Doyle 27 August 2010 Leiden University Supervisor: Dr. A.T.P.G. van Engelenhoven Second reader: Dr. A.C. Schapper TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction 4 2 What is CMP, and where is Flores-Lembata? 5 2.1. From Malayo-Polynesian languages to Timor languages 5 2.2. Introducing Flores-Lembata 6 3 Previous and ongoing research related to the present study 7 3.1. Research within Central Malayo-Polynesian 7 3.1.1 Influence of typological data 8 3.2. Swadesh lists, 'basic vocabulary', and glottochronology 9 4 Explanation of sources used 10 4.1. Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database 10 4.1.1 Proto-Austronesian - (ABVD Online) 10 4.1.2 Proto-Malayo-Polynesian - (ABVD Online) 10 4.1.3 Proto-Central Malayo-Polynesian - (ABVD Online) 10 4.2. Sika (Language A) 10 4.3. Lewolema (Language B) 11 4.4. Lewoingu (Language C) 11 4.5. Solor (Language D) 11 4.6. Lamalera (Language E) 12 4.7. Kedang (Language F) 12 4.8. Alorese (Language G) 12 4.8.1 Alorese - Alorkecil dialect 12 5 Methodology 13 5.1. Introduction 13 5.2. The Comparative Method 13 5.3. Sound change 14 5.4. Basic principles of reconstructing sounds 14 5.4.1 Directionality 15 5.4.2 Majority wins and economy 15 6 The internal divisions of Flores-Lembata 15 6.1. Introduction 15 6.1.1 Introduction of tables that displays sound correspondences 16 6.2. Sound correspondence 1 (C1) 17 6.3. -
Papers on Six Languages of Papua New Guinea
Papers on six languages of Papua New Guinea Pacific Linguistics 616 Pacific Linguistics is a publisher specialising in grammars and linguistic descriptions, dictionaries and other materials on languages of the Pacific, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, southeast and south Asia, and Australia. Pacific Linguistics, established in 1963 through an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund, is associated with the School of Culture, History and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University. The authors and editors of Pacific Linguistics publications are drawn from a wide range of institutions around the world. Publications are refereed by scholars with relevant expertise, who are usually not members of the editorial board. FOUNDING EDITOR: Stephen A. Wurm EDITORIAL BOARD: I Wayan Arka and Malcolm Ross (Managing Editors), Mark Donohue, Nicholas Evans, David Nash, Andrew Pawley, Paul Sidwell, Jane Simpson, and Darrell Tryon EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Karen Adams, Arizona State University Marian Klamer, Universiteit Leiden Alexander Adelaar, University of Melbourne Harold Koch, The Australian National Peter Austin, School of Oriental and African University Studies Frantisek Lichtenberk, University of Byron Bender, University of Hawai‘i Auckland Walter Bisang, Johannes Gutenberg- John Lynch, University of the South Pacific Universität Mainz Patrick McConvell, Australian Institute of Robert Blust, University of Hawai‘i Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander David Bradley, La Trobe University Studies Lyle Campbell, University of Utah William McGregor, Aarhus Universitet James Collins, Universiti Kebangsaan Ulrike Mosel, Christian-Albrechts- Malaysia Universität zu Kiel Bernard Comrie, Max Planck Institute for Claire Moyse-Faurie, Centre National de la Evolutionary Anthropology Recherche Scientifique Matthew Dryer, State University of New York Bernd Nothofer, Johann Wolfgang Goethe- at Buffalo Universität Frankfurt am Main Jerold A. -
Library of Congress Subject Headings for the Pacific Islands
Library of Congress Subject Headings for the Pacific Islands First compiled by Nancy Sack and Gwen Sinclair Updated by Nancy Sack Current to January 2020 Library of Congress Subject Headings for the Pacific Islands Background An inquiry from a librarian in Micronesia about how to identify subject headings for the Pacific islands highlighted the need for a list of authorized Library of Congress subject headings that are uniquely relevant to the Pacific islands or that are important to the social, economic, or cultural life of the islands. We reasoned that compiling all of the existing subject headings would reveal the extent to which additional subjects may need to be established or updated and we wish to encourage librarians in the Pacific area to contribute new and changed subject headings through the Hawai‘i/Pacific subject headings funnel, coordinated at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.. We captured headings developed for the Pacific, including those for ethnic groups, World War II battles, languages, literatures, place names, traditional religions, etc. Headings for subjects important to the politics, economy, social life, and culture of the Pacific region, such as agricultural products and cultural sites, were also included. Scope Topics related to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawai‘i would predominate in our compilation had they been included. Accordingly, we focused on the Pacific islands in Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia (excluding Hawai‘i and New Zealand). Island groups in other parts of the Pacific were also excluded. References to broader or related terms having no connection with the Pacific were not included. Overview This compilation is modeled on similar publications such as Music Subject Headings: Compiled from Library of Congress Subject Headings and Library of Congress Subject Headings in Jewish Studies.