The primary goal of the project involves linguistic field work on Mehek (nux), an endangered language in the Tama branch of the Sepik family. It is spoken in several villages, the primary of which is Nuku, in Sandaun Province in northwest Papua New Guinea. Adam Hatfield will collect data primarily via direct note-taking and transcription of recorded stories from consultant speech as well as making corrections to data which has already been collected. The project goal is to produce a grammar and dictionary of the language. The latter will, in particular, be utilized directly by the community members in both teaching children and as a reference for adults. In addition to providing a dictionary, community members have requested that many of their traditional stories be written and translated into both English and Tok Pisin (the national language of Papua New Guinea).

Many linguists estimate that more than half the languages currently spoken in the world will be extinct by the end of this century. New Guinea is a unique linguistic area in that one fifth of the languages of the world (approximately 1200 out of about 6000, a more conservative estimate than is often cited) are spoken there. But in many areas of Papua New Guinea, the creole Tok Pisin is rapidly replacing the original vernacular languages. For Mehek, the youngest children no longer speak the vernacular language. And since the reasons why Tok Pisin is taking over so rapidly in this part of Papua New Guinea apply equally well to most areas of the country, it may well be the case that there are many languages in the country that are no longer spoken by young children, hence the need to document, at least to some extent, as many languages of New Guinea as possible as soon as possible.

Project Report

The goal of the project was to fund a final field trip to Papua New Guinea by Adam Hatfield, a doctoral student, to collect further data on the Mehek language which his dissertation is a description of. Prior to this field trip, Hatfield completed an initial draft of his dissertation prior to this field trip; the purpose of the field trip was to collect data to answer a number of unresolved questions. New Guinea is home to over 1000 languages, about one fifth of the languages of the world. In many areas of New Guinea, these languages are endangered due to replacement by Tok Pisin, an English-based creole language. In many communities, the younger children do not speak the village language, only Tok Pisin. When this happens, it is most often the case that the language goes extinct within a couple of generations. While there are a few children in Mehek villages who speak the Mehek language, they are a minority and the bulk of communication within villages is now conducted in Tok Pisin. Documenting languages like this before they become extinct is a high priority. Because there are so many endangered languages in New Guinea, it is likely that many will become extinct without documentation. This makes the documentation of any language of New Guinea a high priority and Adam Hatfield’s description of the Mehek language in his dissertation serves this purpose, since there is no previous description of this language.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS)
Type
Standard Grant (Standard)
Application #
1263554
Program Officer
Shobhana Chelliah
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2013-07-01
Budget End
2014-12-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$13,059
Indirect Cost
Name
Suny at Buffalo
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Buffalo
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
14228