Worlds apart: language survival and language use in two Middle Sepik communities (original) (raw)

Aikhenvald Language contact along the Sepik River

Abstract. The Sepik River Basin in New Guinea is a locus of substantial linguistic diversity, with several genetically related and unrelated languages in continuous contact.The inhabitants of the area divide into those who live on the Sepik River ('River dwellers') and those who live in the bush ('Jungle dwellers'). The two groups differ in their ways of subsistence, the knowledge of each other languages, and the impact of language contact. I then turn to Manambu, from the Ndu family, spoken by a war-like group of River dwellers, and the ways its grammar was influenced by the languages of the neighbouring Jungle dwellers, the Kwoma and the Yessan-Mayo. The lexical influence from the closely related Iatmul (also spoken by River dwellers) is restricted to a number of ritual genres (now obsolete). The patterns of interaction between Jungle dwellers and River dwellers, and the effects of language contact in the Middle Sepik are compared to the situation in the multilingual Vaupés area in Northwest Amazonia. In each case, the different means of subsistence, life-styles and interactions are responsible for different effects of contact-induced change.

Language Contact and Language Change in the Sepik Region of New Guinea: The Case of Yalaku

2020

Yalaku is one of the smallest members of the Ndu language family of the Sepik region of New Guinea. Spoken in a hilly area off the Sepik river, Yalaku has been in intensive contact with the unrelated Kwoma for several generations. Comparison between Yalaku and closely related Manambu shows the presence of a number of grammatical patterns borrowed from Kwoma, alongside a number of loanwords. Tok Pisin, the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea, is known to every speaker of Yalaku, with the two languages in a diglossic relationship. Lexical loans from Tok Pisin are avoided; however, Tok Pisin impact is being felt in the pronunciation patterns by younger speakers, calques, and the presence of two borrowed grammatical forms—the possessive verb and the negator. Cultural and linguistic factors suggest an explanation for this seemingly curious development.

Language change among the Urak Lawoi'

2012

In this article, the link between migration, community forming and language change of the Urak Lawoi’ (UL) people is made evident. Descriptive and comparative linguistic research, conducted since February 2010 in several Urak Lawoi’ communities on Thailand’s Andaman coast has supplied most of the data. Some additional data have been selected from earlier research, notably that by Amorn Thawisak (1986). Urak Lawoi’ is a highly adaptive language that has developed alongside other Malay languages from the Malayan group (which also includes Para Malay languages such as Minagkabau and Temuan). Like the vocabulary of other Malay languages, such as Johor-Riau, Jambi, Kedah, Bengkulu and Pattani, that of UL is for the greater part cognate with the modern standard Malay (SM) languages, the most well known of which are the national languages of Malaysia (Bahasa Malaysia; BM) and Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia; BI)3. When spoken, UL cannot be properly understood by speakers of SM. This is, however, primarily due to certain regular sound changes. By comparing UL with other Malay languages, and by considering loans in vocabulary and grammar which have occurred over time, we can define the place where the Urak Lawoi’ originated as a people, where they went from there, and in which places they chose to settle semi-permanently before making Southern Thailand their permanent domicile. The Urak Lawoi’ have a lot in common with other Malay people, but there are also many things in which they differ. Originally a nomadic sea people, they have hardly been indianized and never been islamized, and until today hold on to their own animistic beliefs. Nomadic as they were, the Urak Lawoi’ have been in contact with many other peoples and cultures, and though they never yielded to complete adaptation to a dominant society’s values, and only recently gave up their nomadic life style, they were to a great extend influenced by the groups they came into contact with. Many of these influences are reflected in the Urak Lawoi’ language. Urak Lawoi’ has loaned from Sanskrit, SM, English (directly and via SM) and most recently from Thai. So even though no written sources about the ethnic homeland of the Urak Lawoi’ exist, by tracing linguistic development and influences we can trace back the path to their place of origin - which lay along the eastern coast of Sumatra - with comparative ease. This paper offers to point out how migration, community forming and settlement of the Urak Lawoi’ is mirrored in their language.

Deixis in MalakMalak: A case of language change in an endangered language

This paper is concerned with a case of language change in MalakMalak, a non-Pama-Nyungan highly endangered language spoken in the Daly River region of Northern Australia. The language expresses deixis and direction- ality in different types of demonstratives and deictic suffixes attaching to all word classes. The semantics of the demonstratives and the distribution pat- terns of the deictic suffixes have changed over the last forty years. I argue that this is in direct correlation with a dramatically shrinking speaker community size and the resulting massive decline of language use. The historical data was collected between 1972 and 1974 by David Birk. Cur- rent data comes from Mark Crocombe and original fieldwork between 2012 and 2014 by the author. The historical data suggests certain uses of deictic demonstratives which are recognized by today’s speakers, but rarely produced spontaneously. For example, a four-way distinction between ngun- ‘there’ kaduk - ‘over there’ keen - ‘over here’, and ki - ‘here’ as in example (1): (1) kaduk wuyu keen wuyu yawug wunelli DIST 3SG.neu.stand.PST PROX 3SG.neu.stand.PST another big.neu ki wuyu PROX 3SG.neu.stand.PST ‘there’s one over there, one over here and another big one here (talking about groups of people sitting spread out during a meeting)’ (Histori- cal source) Furthermore, kaduk used to be used as a marker of ‘otherness’ or taboo as in examples (2) and (3) while keen was a familiarity marker as in (4) : (2) kaduk yide, dek yuwaya DIST 3SG.masc.go.PRS camp 2SG.go.PRS ‘this other one (that person over there - brother that cannot be named) - he goes away with his brother’ (historical) (3) kaduk wudyu DIST 3PL.stand.PST ‘another mob is there’ (historical) 1 (4) mity nga keen wurrka-ma nuende Denisibal sister 1SG.excl PROX work-CONT 3SG.fem.go.PRS nt op ‘my sister works in Belyuen’ (historical) Proximal -nggi or distal directional suffixes -ngga may attach to all word classes as in (5), (6) and 7). Their distribution, however, has grown much more restricted in today’s speech where they mainly occur in lexicalised form attaching to coverbs (9) , inflecting verbs (8) and demonstratives (11), or in direct opposition to one another as in (10) and (12). (5) kanjuk-man-nggi kanggi nuendung on.top-ABL-DIR.PROX come.DIR.PROX 2SG.go.PURP ‘you come from up there to here’ (historical) (6) ngurra tyid pi enung-ngga some/other take move 1SG.excl.go.FUT-DIST.DIR ‘I’m gonna take some beef back’ (historical) (7) karrk-wat wa-nggi move.up-send pick.up-PROX.DIR ‘bring it up here!’ (historical) (8) Jigbala-nen nuenue-yen wuta-ngga name-DIR 3SG.fem.sit.PRS-DIR 3PL.go.PST-DIST.DIR ‘they are going towards where Jigbala is sitting’ (current source) (9) dek kadurruk-en wa-ngga wirrminy=ye camp DIST.EXT-DIR pick.up-DIST.DIR 3PL.do.PUNCT=FOC ‘they took him to another country’ (current) (10) pungaty-man-nggi nunda pungaty-man-ngga smoke-ABL-PROX.DIR 3SG.fem.go.PST smoke-ABL-DIST.DIR nunda 3SG.fem.go.PST ‘She came over here/there smoking’(current) (11) ngunanggi pi yida western.riverbank/DIST.PROX.DIR move 3SG.masc.go.PST ‘he went to the other side?’ (current) (12) titykanggi kinangga come.out.come.PROX.DIR eastern.riverbank/PROX.DIST.DIR ‘they come out on the eastern bank’ (current) 2 I argue that some of the spatial system’s former complexity among the dimin- ishing speakers and especially among those having left the traditional home- lands has been lost over time. Therefore, this suggests a direct correlation between language use and geographic and cultural environment that is under threat alongside the language itself in a case of language endangerment.

Kokborok: A Major Tribal Language of Tripura

Abstract: The Borok is a major and aboriginal tribe of Tripura. They are with an approximate population of 15 lakh. They have been living in the state since thousand years. The language they speak is called Kokborok. It belongs to Bodo-Garo group of Tibeto- Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan family. The current paper discusses and analyses some important phonological and grammatical feature of Kokborok. At the same time it throws light on a few aspect of ethno-cultural life of Boroks. Language is human system of communication that uses arbitrary signals such as voice sound, gesture, or written symbols. It is one of the most wonderful creations of man. It may be considered as a tool, instrument or machine of social control. It is a storehouse of knowledge and it transfer knowledge from one person to another and from one generation to another.