Linguist helps preserve Vanuatu languages (fwd)

[Phil CashCash]

Massey News
20 October, 2003

Linguist helps preserve Vanuatu languages
http://masseynews.massey.ac.nz/2003/masseynews/oct/oct20/stories/24-18-03.html

As an anthropological linguist, Dr Martin Paviour-Smith immerses        
            himself in a language and its people.

A linguist’s work towards language preservation is a misunderstood
mission, he says. Dr Paviour-Smith is part of a Marsden-funded
three-person team which will collect and study languages in the Vanuatu
islands, working with the people to develop their own systems of
conservation.

“Vanuatu has the highest number of languages per person in the world –
110 among 180,000 people at the last count. Very few of the dialects
have more than 1000 speakers, and consequentially, there are a high
proportion of struggling or endangered languages.”

With Professor Terry Crowley from Waikato University and Dr Liz Pearce
from Victoria University, Dr Paviour-Smith, from the School of Language
Studies, will travel to the island of Malakula for three months each
year for the next three years. Professor Crowley will focus on moribund
languages (with fewer than 20 speakers), Dr Pearce on the Unua dialect
and Dr Paviour-Smith on the closely-related Aulua dialect.

He has lived for several months previously in the Aulua village for the
first stage of his project developing an orthography (writing system)
that he hopes will one day be used in the island’s schools.
Missionaries first set an orthography in the 1880s, which was later
swamped when the Vanuatu government legislated the use of English or
French in schools.

Dr Paviour-Smith says the gradual introduction of international
languages has been responsible for a shift in the importance people
place on languages and the number of people who use the vernacular.

“Traditionally people knew more than one language so they could
communicate between villages but now the prevalence of French and
English and the Creole language Bislama means most young people are
more confident speaking Bislama than Aulua.”

He explains that, depending on which year a child started school, they
may learn in either English or French, so siblings are not necessarily
schooled in the same language. “But because children leave school
around age 11, they are not proficient in English, French or Aulua.”

When he returns to Malakula, and the village of Aulua, Dr Paviour-Smith
will help the people compile a dictionary while continuing with the
orthography. “There was great interest in my getting a dictionary
together, but the real value lies in these people taking control of
their situation, setting a precedent for other villages.”

Staying in Aulua (population 500) is crucial to his task; being with the
community for up to three months at a time will enable him to collect a
comprehensive set of language rules and patterns beyond grammar.

“Social factors, such as they way children are taught language and
stories, are integral to linguistic research. In Aulua, children are
prompted by their families to call out to other families, in the dark
at night before the village settles down for the night. Other children
will call back with the appropriate response prompted by their families
and so learn this particular oral tradition.”

He says traditions such as story-telling, which is particularly  strong
among the Aulua islanders, are vital when learning and documenting a
language. “It is really important to collect big pieces of language
like stories, to see how words are put together. In Aulua when someone
has finished telling a story to a group they say ‘kusve kusve’, or
‘thanks  for listening and I hope you enjoyed it’ all in one. The group
will then yell ‘kusve kusve’ back.”

Dr Paviour-Smith is currently working on a collection of Kastom  (fables
and histories) in the language and recently lectured Massey staff and
students on Kastom narrative features. He has documented a recurrent
theme within stories in which women, or a female animal in a fable,
burn their own houses to the ground.

“This is basically a trick used by the character to return to her own
family – when a woman in Aulua marries, she leaves her home and family
to live in her husband’s village.  To burn her house is to reject her
obligations and duties, it is a statement.” He will collect more
stories and Kastom over the next few years.