ELL: vanuatu languages

[Nicholas Thieberger]

Cultural Centre produces booklets for teaching vernacular literacy at
pre-school level. (Port Vila Presse, 22 Dec.2001/p-2)

The Oral Traditions Project of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre has
produced a series of booklets to be used in teaching vernacular
literacy in various language communities throughout Vanuatu. A set of
four different booklets has been produced for each of 12 languages.
These booklets are an important step in introducing vernacular
education to communities.

The books are intended primarily for use in early education in
community kindergartens. One is an alphabet book, to be used for
teaching the spelling system of the language. This book in particular
will be of use to both adults and children, to assist in showing how
to write in the vernacular. People who wish to write in language but
have previously found it too hard, will be able to use this book as a
guide to how some of the more 'difficult' sounds in their languages
should be written. The other three books are picture books showing
the names of common birds, trees and marine life.

The 12 languages for which the books have been produced are: two
languages of West Vanua Lava, Banks; two languages of west coast
Santo; the language of Hog Harbour, Santo; Central Maewo language;
the Lolovoli dialect spoken in southeast Ambae, raga of north
Pentecost, and two of south Pentecost; a language of west Ambrym; and
the language of V'ao island, Malekula.

These books are the culmination of three years work by Catriona
Hyslop, the linguist who manages the project, traveled to each of the
communities, analyzed the sound system and discussed with the
community how their languages should be represented in writing.

The main funders for the project were Australian Volunteers
International, who sponsored Catriona Hyslop and NZODA, who provided
funds for running workshops and for part of the production cost of
the booklets. The curriculum Development Centre of the Ministry of
Education also offered vital support by producing most of the
booklets.
--


Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
University of Melbourne
http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/contact/studentsites/thieberger/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/endangered-languages-l/attachments/20020102/bccbe686/attachment.htm>