Promoting Unity in Diversity: Celebrating the Indigenous Languages of the South Pacific (original) (raw)

2019, Language and Linguistics in Melanesia

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.