scholarly journals Language and ethnobiological skills decline precipitously in Papua New Guinea, the world’s most linguistically diverse nation

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (22) ◽  
pp. e2100096118
Author(s):  
Alfred Kik ◽  
Martin Adamec ◽  
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald ◽  
Jarmila Bajzekova ◽  
Nigel Baro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
Family Language ◽  
Cash Economy

Papua New Guinea is home to >10% of the world’s languages and rich and varied biocultural knowledge, but the future of this diversity remains unclear. We measured language skills of 6,190 students speaking 392 languages (5.5% of the global total) and modeled their future trends using individual-level variables characterizing family language use, socioeconomic conditions, students’ skills, and language traits. This approach showed that only 58% of the students, compared to 91% of their parents, were fluent in indigenous languages, while the trends in key drivers of language skills (language use at home, proportion of mixed-language families, urbanization, students’ traditional skills) predicted accelerating decline of fluency to an estimated 26% in the next generation of students. Ethnobiological knowledge declined in close parallel with language skills. Varied medicinal plant uses known to the students speaking indigenous languages are replaced by a few, mostly nonnative species for the students speaking English or Tok Pisin, the national lingua franca. Most (88%) students want to teach indigenous language to their children. While crucial for keeping languages alive, this intention faces powerful external pressures as key factors (education, cash economy, road networks, and urbanization) associated with language attrition are valued in contemporary society.

scholarly journals The world’s hotspot of linguistic and biocultural diversity under threat

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Kik ◽  
Martin Adamec ◽  
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald ◽  
Jarmila Bajzekova ◽  
Nigel Baro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native Species ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Individual Level

AbstractPapua New Guinea is home to >10% of the world’s languages and rich and varied biocultural knowledge, but the future of this diversity remains unclear. We measured language skills of 6,190 students speaking 392 languages (5.5% of the global total) and modelled their future trends, using individual-level variables characterizing family language use, socio-economic conditions, student’s skills, and language traits. This approach showed that only 58% of the students, compared to 91% of their parents, were fluent in indigenous languages, while the trends in key drivers of language skills (language use at home, proportion of mixed-language families, urbanization, students’ traditional skills) predicted accelerating decline of fluency, to an estimated 26% in the next generation of students. Ethnobiological knowledge declined in close parallel with language skills. Varied medicinal plant uses known to the students speaking indigenous languages are replaced by a few, mostly non-native species for the students speaking English or Tok Pisin, the national lingua franca. Most (88%) students want to teach indigenous language to their children. While crucial for keeping languages alive, this intention faces powerful external pressures as key factors (education, cash economy, road networks, urbanization) associated with language attrition are valued in contemporary society.Significance StatementAround the world, more than 7,000 languages are spoken, most of them by small populations of speakers in the tropics. Globalization puts small languages at a disadvantage, but our understanding of the drivers and rate of language loss remains incomplete. When we tested key factors causing language attrition among Papua New Guinean students speaking 392 different indigenous languages, we found an unexpectedly rapid decline in their language skills compared to their parents and predicted further acceleration of language loss in the next generation. Language attrition was accompanied by decline in the traditional knowledge of nature among the students, pointing to an uncertain future for languages and biocultural knowledge in the most linguistically diverse place on Earth.

scholarly journals Living with diversity and change: intergenerational differences in language and identity in the Somali community in Britain

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (269) ◽  
pp. 15-45
Author(s):  
Sahra Bashir Abdullahi ◽  
Li Wei
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
British Society ◽  
Language And Identity ◽  
Language Preference ◽  
Family Language Policy ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Family Language ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

Abstract The Somali community in Britain has been portrayed as largely homogenous and rather problematic, unwilling to integrate into mainstream British society, a perception that is reinforced by the media and government policies. The government policies tend to ignore the internal diversity and change that the community is experiencing. Drawing on data from a family language policy project, this paper aims to explore intergenerational changes in language preference and use and associated issues of identity within the Somali community in Britain. We look at how the changes in language preference and practice manifest themselves through reported language use and language policies at home, how the changes are affecting the British Somali youths in particular, and how ideas of Somaliness and Britishness are negotiated on an individual level, as well as on a community-wide level through Somali-led organisations. And we highlight the work that the community is doing to tackle issues of intergenerational language shift and Somali identity building. The study aims to contribute to a better understanding of the struggles of the Somali community in Britain in dealing with diversity and change, an understanding that is crucial to the development of appropriate policies regarding the community.

scholarly journals Beyond a Common Code: Cameroon Pidgin English - the Language of the Elite and the Masses

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-29
Author(s):  
Rachel Ayuk Ojong Diba
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Small Population ◽  
Common People ◽  
Common Code ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Masses

The principal purpose of this paper is to underline the usefulness and efficacy of Cameroonian Pidgin English (CPE) in dealing with the intense multilingualism of Cameroonians in a rural enclave in Cameroon and in the Diaspora. CPE is a highly stigmatized but extensively used language of wider communication in Cameroon. Cameroon is second only to Papua New Guinea in terms of its multiplicity of languages for a relatively small population and the shunned CPE is the language that trudges through this multi-ethnicity, multiculturalism and multilingualism to not only provide a feeling of togetherness to Anglophone Cameroonians but to also allow them communicate efficiently and cordially. CPE was incipiently a language for the uneducated, this contribution shows that today CPE is not only the language of the common people; it is also the language of the Cameroonian elite. Using qualitative data – recordings of natural conversations from individuals in Lower Fungom and written conversation from online fora comprising Cameroonians of all walks of life, this contribution demonstrates that CPE is an emblematic language which Cameroonians use when communication would otherwise be impossible and still use it even when there is an option (though one-legged) of other languages. The paper demonstrates how multilingualism functions even in rural circles. It is also demonstrates the benefits of Pidgins and Creoles in linguistically diverse settings, which are relatively uncommon.

scholarly journals The ups and downs of space and time: topography in Yupno language, culture, and cognition

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Kensy Cooperrider ◽  
James Slotta ◽  
Rafael Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Cognitive Ecology ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Culture And Cognition ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Time Concepts

Abstract Much prior research has investigated how humans understand time using body-based contrasts like front/back and left/right. It has recently come to light, however, that some communities instead understand time using environment-based contrasts. Here, we present the richest portrait yet of one such case: the topographic system used by the Yupno of Papua New Guinea, in which the past is construed as downhill and the future as uphill. We first survey topographic concepts in Yupno language and culture, showing how they constitute a privileged resource for communicating about space. Next, we survey time concepts in Yupno, focusing on how topographic concepts are used to construe past, present, and future. We then illustrate how this topographic understanding of time comes to life in the words, hands, and minds of Yupno speakers. Drawing on informal interviews, we offer a view of the topographic system that goes beyond a community-level summary, and offers a glimpse of its individual-level and moment-to-moment texture. Finally, we step back to account for how this topographic understanding of time is embedded within a rich cognitive ecology of linguistic, cultural, gestural, and architectural practices. We close by discussing an elusive question: Why is the future uphill?

Making Change in Oksapmin Tradestores: A Study of Shifting Practices of Quantification Under Conditions of Rapid Shift towards a Cash Economy

2004 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 11-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey B. Saxe ◽  
Indigo Esmonde
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Indigenous Language ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Age Cohorts ◽  
Age Cohort ◽  
Cash Economy ◽  
Rapid Shift

AbstractWe report two studies about shifting practices of quantification in tradestores in Oksapmin communities (Papua New Guinea). In Study 1, we enlisted 7 local tradestore clerks to collect information about customers' language practices of quantification, age cohort, schooling level, and cost of purchase. Analyses of 305 exchanges revealed that older cohorts tended to use indigenous practices and extensions of the indigenous language. Younger cohorts – particularly those with some schooling -- tended to use practices that involved Melanesian Pidgin. In Study 2, we analyze interviews with 9 tradestore clerks who described typical purchase transactions with customers from different age cohorts/schooling levels. Analyses of interviews revealed that elders tended to structure multi-item purchases into sequential transactions and use extensions of indigenous approaches to quantification. Schooled adults tended to purchase multiple items in a single transaction and use Pidgin quantifiers. We argue that tradestores today sustain multiple practices of quantification but also support change towards the exclusive use of Melanesian Pidgin.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document