Bulletin

Issue: July 2005

Research in Action

Saving a language – and a people’s identity

La Trobe University has made a significant contribution to the preservation of an endangered Papua New Guinea language.

‘Although it is one of about 800 languages in Papua New Guinea, its preservation is vital to the social and economic well-being of its 2,200 speakers,’ says La Trobe language researcher, Dr Tonya Stebbins.

A lecturer in La Trobe’s Linguistics Program, Dr Stebbins played a crucial role in the preservation by compiling a dictionary, a grammar, and helping prepare the first published text collection in the language known as Mali Baining.

La Trobe University partially funded the first text collection published in Mali Baining which is now being enjoyed by the community and used as a curriculum resource in local primary schools.

The Mali people live in scattered villages in the remote mountainous southeast of the Gazelle Peninsula on the island of New Britain near Rabaul. Dr Stebbins’ research took her to the village of Marunga, situated near a palm-fringed beach.

In spite of the fact that the islands of New Britain and New Ireland were among the first areas of Papua New Guinea to have come into contact with Europeans, New Britain has remained linguistically one of the least known regions of the country.

People across Papua New Guinea gradually shifted to the national lingua franca, Tok Pisin, or to the language of commerce and education, English. At the same time opportunities to learn and speak local languages are shrinking even though local languages are the source of a great deal of cultural vitality and pride.

Dr Stebbins became involved with the people of Marunga in 2001 through her work with La Trobe’s Research Centre for Linguistic Typology where she gained a post doctoral fellowship.

She had gained expertise in supporting communities with endangered languages when she completed her PhD thesis on the language of the Tsimshian Nation, a small First Nations (Indigenous) community in the north of the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Since 2001 she has visited Marunga, twice, including a nine month stay in 2002. She is now warmly accepted as a friend and community member by many villagers.

During her research she discovered that she was not the first to attempt to put Mali Baining into written form. Before World War II, a German missionary, Father Alphonse Mayerhoffer and his Mali Baining instructor Nguingimga had prepared a catechism and a hymn book. In Marunga, Dr Stebbins found the only known legacy of this work – one tattered copy of the hymn book.

Father Mayerhoffer died during the Japanese occupation and was replaced after the war by his brother, also a priest who adopted a young Marunga boy, Julius Tayul whose parents had also died during the war.

Helped by the priest, Julius attained a secondary education and returned to his village to become the first Mali school teacher. Forty years later, Dr Stebbins met Mr Tayul during her research and together they worked on the dictionary, texts and grammar.

‘It is very important to me to be able to return the products of my research to the community in relevant and useful forms,’ Dr Stebbins said. ‘Most people don’t want to give up their language because it means their sense of identity is under threat.

‘Basic tools such as the texts, dictionary and grammar are necessary for language programs so children can acquire literacy in the language they use at home. They also act as concrete affirmation of the importance of the language in the wider world.

‘In addition, documenting and providing the tools to maintain the language has a positive impact of people’s perception of themselves,’ she said.

To this end she and Julius produced in 2004 the texts under the title Stories and Songs from the Village. The text collection includes oral history describing events that occurred more than 500 years ago. The collection also celebrates contemporary village life.

Despite the rigours of fieldwork, Dr Stebbins will be going back to work on another language, Taulil, which has an even smaller community than the Mali language and a more complicated history. She said it was necessary to document Mali first so that she could understand Taulil in its historical context. •

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