[Linganth] Language & the Kula Ring

[Handman, Courtney]

Dear Rudolf,

I asked your questions to a colleague, Jordan Haug, who is finishing up his dissertation about a community on Misima Island that is in the kula ring. The main answer is that, like the parts of Papua New Guinea I am familiar with, people in the kula ring are multilingual: kula participants often have some knowledge of 3 languages or so. The other answer is that Dobu is a regional lingua franca, with the languages Muyuw and Pana Misima also spoken during kula transactions across large chunks of the region. Kula transactions taking place in or near Alotau, the regional town center, are more likely to be conducted in English.

The language spoken in the Trobriands is called Kilivila (by Trobrianders and others). Jordan reports that many folks in the part of the kula ring near Misima find Kilivila difficult, and prefer Dobu, Muyuw, Pana Misima, or Ware, all languages that are quite similar to one another (and all a bit different from Kilivila).

Susanne Kuehling works on Dobu and is currently working on a documentary about contemporary kula. I’m not sure when that project will be finished.

Best wishes,
Courtney



Courtney Handman
Associate Professor and Associate Chair
Department of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
2201 Speedway, Stop C3200
Austin, TX 78712
SAC 4.124
512.471.0059






From: Linganth <linganth-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of "Gaudio, Rudolf" <Rudolf.Gaudio at purchase.edu>
Date: Monday, September 9, 2019 at 6:02 PM
To: "LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org" <LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: [Linganth] Language & the Kula Ring


Hello, all

I use excerpts from Malinowski’s work on the Kula ring regularly in my classes, and have long wanted to know more about the linguistic dimensions of Kula trading expeditions. Malinowski labels the language he learned Kiriwinian, which suggests it was only spoken on the island of Kiriwina. What about the other islands? I’ve tried to figure out the sociolinguistic situation in the Trobriand Islands (then and now) using widely available online sources, and have done a wee bit of searching through more academic sources, but I haven’t found anything that specifically describes what language(s) Malinowski’s Kiriwinian associates used when they visited or hosted people from different islands. Were all the languages of the region mutually intelligible? Was everyone multilingual? Were particular people employed as translators?

Any guidance you can give would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Rudi


Rudolf P. Gaudio
Purchase College, State University of New York


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