book chapter

Language & Communication, 2008

This paper considers what role the discovery and linguistic differentiation of regional languages played in the representational construction of Polynesia, the study of the region's languages over time, the languages themselves, and the political and social lives of islanders. Focusing on French Polynesia, it questions whether there has been a sentimental attachment to the issue of human origins that has become entangled in the local politics of regional personhood. It draws particular attention to the use of language to make claims about islander persons and the way that language studies have become entangled in islanders' enduring traditions of human origins, island settlement and evaluations of the significance thereof.

Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication, 2018

The Pacific region is home to about 1,500 languages, with a strong concentration of linguistic diversity in Melanesia. The turn towards documentary linguistics, initiated in the 1980s and theorized by N. Himmelmann, has encouraged linguists to prepare, archive and distribute large corpora of audio and video recordings in a broad array of Pacific languages, many of which are endangered. The strength of language documentation is to entail the mutual exchange of skills and knowledge between linguists and speaker communities. Their members can access archived resources, or create their own. Importantly, they can also appropriate the outcome of these documentary efforts to promote literacy within their school systems, and to consolidate or revitalize their heritage languages against the increasing pressure of dominant tongues. While providing an overview of the general progress made in the documentation of Pacific languages in the last twenty years, this paper also reports on my own experience with documenting and promoting languages in Island Melanesia since 1997. François, Alexandre. 2018. In search of island treasures: Language documentation in the Pacific. In McDonnell, Bradley, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker, and Gary Holton (eds.), Reflections on Language Documentation 20 Years after Himmelmann 1998. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication no. 15: 276-294. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

Language, 2017

Our thanks to two referees for their comments. 1 The revised edition being reviewed here has been published as an open-access monograph, available for download at http://hdl.handle.net/1885/10191. 2 Ranona is presumably constructed from the personal-name article Ra-plus the noun anona 'what-doyou-call-it'.

2011

Readers of this review should be aware of my prejudices and shortcomings as a reviewer. When Richard Moyle, the author of this work, was planning his dictionary of Takuu, he thoughtfully contacted me for permission to use some features of a dictionary that I compiled for the Sikaiana language, a Polynesian language closely related to Takuu.1 I wrote it about 25 years ago, but I have retained some fluency in the language. Takuu has many cognates with Sikaiana and even after being away from the Sikaiana language for over 20 years, I can understand much of the Takuu language presented in this dictionary. I found Moyle’s dictionary to be an excellent resource not only about the Takuu language but also about Takuu culture. Moreover for the people themselves, the dictionary is a heritage resource, recording many cultural practices that are likely to change in coming years. Moyle’s dictionary is developed from 3300 headwords that he compiled from over 20 months of ethnographic research bet...

Proceedings of the Second Linguapax Asia International Symposium, 2005

This paper presents an ethnographic study of Palauan language contact and preservation with reference to its orthography in the Republic of Palau in the Western Pacific. Owing to its history of occupations (Spain 1885-1899; Germany 1899-1914; Japan 1914-1945; the U.S. 1945-1994), its lately achieved political independence (as the Republic of Palau in 1994) and its economic reliance on prolonged financial support from Japan and the U.S., a rather unique and interesting diglossic situation has arisen. This paper firstly assesses the extent to which the heritage language, Palauan, is preserved, by conducting a domain analysis of language use from the past to present in this multilingual diglossic nation-state. Secondly, it discusses the reasons why it is difficult to preserve Palauan.

1991

Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, 2019

Linguistic diversity in Papua New Guinea comes in many guises — diversity of genetic groups, diversity in language numbers, and diversity of linguistic structures and forms. Add to this the diversity of genres and speech registers available in the speech repertoire of every thriving language community. Transgenerational diversity adds a further dimension to this. Young people develop new forms, new ways of saying things, and even new languages. And they are hardly a minority or a negligible group. Within the context of PNG at least 32% of the population are aged under thirty. Sadly, in a number of communities children no longer acquire their ancestral tongues, shifting to a national language instead. One example is Abu' Arapesh, a Torricelli language from East Sepik and Sandaun, and Iatmul in the village of Korogo in East Sepik (Nekitel 1998; Jendraschek 2012: 478). In those communities where ancestral languages continue to be in use by children and young adults, we find intergenerational phonological and phonetic differences, partly under the influence of Tok Pisin, as in Yalaku, from East Sepik, and partly as an independent development, as in Nungon, from Morobe (Sarvasy 2017: 121, 350), and Yimas, from East Sepik (Foley 1991: 39). There is also regularization of paradigms and extension of one form to cover multiple functions, as in Manambu from East Sepik (Aikhenvald 2008: 323-4, 330). New conjunctions and clause-chaining markers are borrowed from Tok Pisin, or developed following the Tok Pisin pattern, as in Paluai, from Manus (Schokkin 2015: 424-5). Clause chains in younger peoples' narratives are markedly shorter than those told by traditional speakers. This is especially so in written stories, text messages, and internet communication — we see the rise of the new genres and ways of framing events (along the lines of Foley 2014, for Watam from East Sepik). The desire to set themselves apart from older family members and keep their interaction private promotes creation of special youth-only speech styles. Young speakers of Nungon have a special code-speak, reserved for gossip or snide remarks, and not mutually intelligible with the mainstream language (Sarvasy 2017: 50; 2019 26). Children and speakers under thirty are often less well-versed in traditional genres than their parents and grandparents. Young people's knowledge of terms for flora and fauna is often dwindling, as they no longer partake in traditional subsistence practices of their ancestors. Instead, they are likely to excel in the knowledge of modern technology and of appropriate terms. Young speakers of Yalaku are responsible for extending the language's own forms to cover notions such as 'flex, phone credit' and 'phone number', so as to avoid Tok Pisin and English terms and thus maintain the 'in-group' status of their native language. This innovation is now spreading. Young people's ways of speaking carry the seeds of language change — the direction which the language of a community is likely to take. The ways in which young people deploy and manipulate their tok ples enhance its vitality and its utility. The linguistic legacy of youth is a foundation for the future. What can we do to ensure it gets a space in language documentation and in educational practices, within the multilingual and multicultural ecologies of PNG? References Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2008. The Manambu language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foley, William A. 1991. The Yimas language of New Guinea. Stanford: Stanford University Press. —. 2014. 'Genre, register and language documentation in literate and preliterate communities', pp. 85-98 of Language documentation and description, volume 1, edited by Peter K. Austin. London: SOAS. Jendraschek, Gerd. 2012. 'A grammar of Iatmul'. Habilitationsschrift. University of Regensburg. Nekitel, O. 1998. Voices of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Language, Culture and Identity. New Delhi: UBS, Publisher Distributors Ltd. Sarvasy, Hannah. 2017. A grammar of Nungon, a Papuan language of Northeast New Guinea. Leiden: Brill. —. 2019. 'Taboo and secrecy in Nungon speech'. Mouth 4: 20-30. Schokkin, Dineke. 2015. 'A grammar of Paluai, the language of Baluan island'. PhD thesis, JCU.

Journal of mathematics and culture, 2017

This critical literature review explores the use of ethnomathematics and Indigenous languages in the teaching of mathematics in Polynesian language regions of the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Hawai'i and Samoa. Across all regions, concerns have been raised, to various degrees, about the loss of language and culture. Although there have been some initiatives to maintain and revive Indigenous languages and ethnomathematical practices, none have been sustained in the long term and few have been thoroughly evaluated. Although many ethnomathematical practices have been documented, the complicated nature of changing educational policy restricts possibilities for using Indigenous culture and language as a basis for mathematics teaching in these regions.

International Journal of Bilingual Education …, 1998

This paper overviews trends in language education across 11 small island states in the South Pacific and notes the difficulties inherent in regional implementation of chosen bilingual education models. The paper situates language policy both historically and socially, and explores the realisation of present-day policies in public-school education and selective mass media, with particular interest in the competing educational motives of economic development and cultural maintenance. Recommendations for more ecological language policies and practices for Pacific Island states are made in conclusion.

Amerasia Journal , 2017

Introductory essay for a special issue on Pacific Languages in Diaspora for Amerasia Journal.

1999

my PhD committee, for suggesting the present topic. It was one for which a reasonable amount of work promised to yield a reasonable body of results. I also want to mention a number of other people beginning with some of those at the University of Iowa when I was there: Mac Marshall whose dynamic teaching led me to Pacific studies and Dick Shutler who supervised my M.A. thesis in anthropology together with Mac and Ed Kozlowski. They sent me on to study linguistics with George Grace, Byron Bender, Don Topping, Andrew Pawley, Ken Rehg and others at the University of Hawai'i. The atmospheres of the Iowa and Hawai'i departments were dominated by enthusiasm. We barely realised how lucky we were: June Helm was our social anthropology professor at Iowa, Lawrence Thompson and George Grace were our comparative linguistics professors at Hawai'i. Ward Goodenough was occasionally in Hawai'i arguing Proto Micronesian reconstructions with us during the years I was there, and many other people visited Iowa and Hawai'i including Robert Kiste, Bruce Biggs, Ross Clark, Peter Bellwood and Roger Green. Above all such people as Paul Geraghty, Bill Wilson and Tamati Reedy were also students at Hawai'i when I was there and they had such remarkable energy.

2007

1991

This beginning text emphasizes vocabulary and conversation in the health care environment. Part I includes 37 basic Samoan lessons providing an introduction to the Samoan language using health care vocabulary. Part II...

2000

Language death has received a great deal of scholarly attention since late 1980s.) are important labors in the field calling the scholarly world and language enthusiasts to the sad realities of vanishing tongues and also exploring the causes of language death in different socio-political enclaves. This paper reviews the social mechanisms that engender language death in postcolonial countries with focus on the Pacific Islands. The paper shows that beyond the issues of colonization and it multifaceted effects, urbanity and the rise of urban vernaculars constitute new strands of endangerment to indigenous languages. Drawing on research facts from Tonga, the factors that endanger the language and the responses from concerned agencies to forestall language loss are enumerated.

Talanoa Radio: Exploring the Interface of Development, Culture and Community Radio in the South Pacific, 2014

The first part of this draft chapter discusses ancient Pacific navigation and cultural norms arising from the "vaka" voyages, such as collective identities, the culture of silence, the importance of language, and the permeability of identity performance. The second part of this chapter discusses the place of islands in the Western imagination, how this informed the European colonial eras in the Pacific Islands, and "upside-down decolonization" of the islands in the late 20th Century.

This chapter argues that language ideologies and practices mediate consequences of cultural contact over time. Focusing on the Pacific, from Rapa Nui to West Papua, it highlights complex histories and variation of cultural encounters, crossings and re-crossings; cultural and political conditions of linguistic research across different colonial and postcolonial phases; the linguistic diversity of Pacific Island societies, and the social centrality of talk and other verbal practices such as literacy, in them. The chapter emphasizes variation in linguistic and cultural change, debates about modernization, missionization, and language endangerment and revitalization, and suggests strategies for understanding the dynamics of such changes by identifying key agents, institutional sites, and linguistic forms, within a wider historical and global conjuncture. Keywords: cultural processes, cultural contact, Rapa Nui, West Papua, Pacific societies, postcolonial, colonial

1986

Subgrouping arguments can be based on quantitative or on qualitative evi dence. l Quantitative evidence consists of the statistical study of the vocabu laries of languages. Qualitative evidence consists of the collection of exclu sively shared innovations. As we will see below, some scholars appeal to both quantitative and qualitative evidence in determining subrelationships, giving preference to qualitative evidence whenever it conflicts with quantitative evi dence. The fact that there exists a conflict between these two kinds of evidence shows that we have to question either the assumptions of lexicostatistics or of the comparative method. Blust (1981) irrefutably disproves one of the fundamental assumptions of current lexicostatistical theory, namely that basic vocabulary gets replaced at a rate which is constant for all languages at all times. Blust observes retention percentages from 58.5% to 15.8% in his sample of 55 languages and dialects. It therefore appears that only qualitative evidence represents a reliable basis for the determination of subrelationship. Only few scholars who have dealt with the subgrouping of the Austronesian language family included the Barrier island languages in their study. The first one was Brandstetter who concluded that Nias was most closely related to Malagasy. This hypothesis was rejected by Lafeber (1922:57-58) who also recognised "strange phonetic agreements" between Malagasy and Nias "which also appear in other Barrier islands such as the occurrence of the sequence ndr (as reflex of *nD or *nd -BN) , of f (as a dialect of Enggano) as reflex of *p and of h (as in Enggano, Toba and Mandailing) as reflex of *k" . Lafeber argued that "the Malagasy vocabulary is much closer to the Malay lexicon than to that of Nias". He claimed that the vocabulary of "Batak-Gayo" has many agreements with that of "Nias -Simalur -Mentawai -Enggano". Unfortunately, he gave only two examples: 2 TBt. sada, Ga. sodo, sara , Ni. sara , Me. sara , Sim. sara one ; TBt. toru below and its cognates in Gayo and the Barrier islands. However, Lafeber never fulfilled his promise to present further lexical evidence for his hypothesis, since the announced second volume of his book in which this evidence was to be given never appeared in print.

Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2017

This is the first JSEALS special publication since JSEALS became a University of Hawai'i Press publication as of January 2017. The goal of JSEALS special publications is to share collections of linguistics articles, such as select papers from conferences or other special research agendas, as well as to offer a way for linguistic researchers in the greater Southeast Asian region to publish monograph-length works. In this instance, Hsiu-chuan Liao, the primary editor of this publication, requested that papers from the 2015 13-ICAL meeting be published through JSEALS, which we were able to complete in a timely manner. The five papers include works by prominent names in the field of Austronesian historical linguistics.

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