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liskantope · 7 years

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Plan for my “journey through languages” project

Some time ago I described a very geeky personal project I wanted to embark on. Because choosing and organizing the languages is kind of a mammoth job, I confined myself to the Indo-European family for right now and I’ll do other families later. Of course I had to pick and choose; there are dozens more on Wikipedia than I’d ever find the time to look at.

Now finally I think I have a list of the Indo-European languages that I want to wander through, ordered according to branches and subbranches of the family. This obviously isn’t set in stone, but I want to explore these languages (e.g. looking at the Wikipedia page, reading brief descriptions and translated passages in Katzner’s Languages of the World if it’s included there, looking up sample texts, maybe listening on YouTube, etc.) at a rate of roughly one per day.

Long ordered list of languages grouped by relatedness, with Wikipedia links, below the cut. An asterisk indicates that the language is feature in Katzner’s book.

Indo-European (Proto-Indo-European)

Anatolian Hittite

Tocharian

Baltic Eastern Lithuanian* (and Samogitian?) Latvian* (and Latgalian?) Western Old Prussian Slavic (Proto-Slavic) Eastern (Old East Slavic) Russian* Belorussian* Ukrainian* Rusyn Western Polish* (and Silesian?) Kashubian Lower Sorbian* Upper Sorbian* Czech* Slovak* Southern (Old Church Slavonic) Church Slavonic Bulgarian* Macedonian* Serbian* Croatian* (and Bosnian?) Slovenian* Indo-Iranian (Proto-Indo-Iranian) Indic (Vedic Sanskrit) (Classical) Sanskrit* Hindi* Urdu* Rajasthani* Kashmiri* Gujarati Domari Romani* Nepali* Punjabi* Sindhi* Bengali* Assamese* Oriya* Marathi* Iranian (Proto-Iranian) Avestan Old Persian Persian / Farsi* Tajik* Pashto* Kurdish* Ossetian* Armenian* Albanian* Hellenic (Proto-Greek) Ancient Greek* Greek*

Italic (Proto-Italic) Latin* Vulgar Latin Sardinian Italian* (and Sicilian, Venetian?) Spanish* Ladino Portuguese* Papiamento* Catalan* Occitan Provençal* Old French French* French creoles Rumanian* Moldavan* Romansh*

Celtic (Proto-Celtic) Goidelic languages (Old Irish) Manx Irish Gaelic* Scottish Gaelic Brittonic (Common Brittonic) Cornish Welsh* Breton*

Germanic (Proto-Germanic) Eastern (Gothic) Northern (Old Norse) West Northern Icelandic* Faroese* Norwegian -- Nynorsk East Northern Danish* Norwegian -- Bokmål* Swedish* Western High Germanic (Old High German) (High) German* Swiss German Luxembourgish* Yiddish* Low Germanic (Old Saxon) Low German Old Dutch Dutch* Flemish* Afrikaans* Old Frisian Frisian* Old English* Middle English* English Scots (and Yola, Fingalian?) (Melanesian) Pidgin English*

#journey through the world's languages #linguistics #geekery

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er-cryptid · 16 days

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vanuaturainbowcity · 4 years

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Fun facts about Vanuatu

The Republic of Vanuatu is a Pacific Island Nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. It is about 1,750 Kilometers east of northern Australia, 540 Kilometers northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, south-east of Solomon Islands and west of Fiji.

Vanuatu is a beautiful and peaceful place to live in. It is a scenic paradise and a tax haven archipelago comprising 83 small volcanic islands that cover 12,000 km2. The total population of Vanuatu today is 275, 064 and approximately 65 islands are inhabited. Formerly known as the New Hebrides, it was discovered and named by Captain Cook in 1774 as Vanuatu. It gained Independence from Britain and France on 30 July 1980.

The capital is Port Vila located in the center of the y-shaped islands on Efate, the third largest island. As first inhabited by Melanesians, the Ni-Vanuatu comprise 90% of the total population today. The second town is Luganville located on the largest island Espiritu Santo, North of Efate. Vanuatu has been divided into eight (8) jurisdictions, namely two (2) municipalities and six (6) provinces since 1994 : Port Vila Municipality and Luganville Municipality, Torba (Torres Islands, Banks Islands), Malampa (Malakula, Ambrym, Paama), Sanma (Santo, Malo), Shefa (Shepherds Group) and Tafea (Tanna, Aniwa, Futuna, Erromango, Aneityum).

Vanuatu is known as the “happiest place in the world”. The people are very friendly and simple. It has a very rich culture and tradition. With an abundance of local resources, lifestyle is still very much on a subsistence scale. Most families produce enough for local consumption only. The local Ni Vanuatu speak 3 languages, mainly Bislama (Pidgin English) which is the National Language. English and French are the two (2) official languages under the Vanuatu Constitution.

For more information please email to [email protected]

#passport #citizenship

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southwarkcofe · 5 years

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Come Holy Spirit

Last Sunday was Pentecost, and in the Diocese of Southwark each of our Episcopal Areas held their own celebratory services. In this week’s ‘Hearts on Fire’ blog, we hear about how each area marked this important date in the Christian calendar.

Croydon - The Revd Mark Anderson, St Mary's, Oxted & St Peter's, Tandridge, writes...

We welcomed people from churches in the Tandridge Deanery and we also welcomed the Holy Spirit to be with us at our cafe style Thy Kingdom Come service at St Mary's Oxted on Pentecost Sunday.

Our usual Sunday afternoon congregation was transformed by people wearing red, yellow and orange, as well as by craft activities involving fire streamers and 'tongues of fire' headbands. Our worship band lead our praises of our God who gives us the Holy Spirit to empower us to be the good news of Jesus to our communities. Most of our service was devoted to praying for ourselves, our communities and our world by engaging with several prayer stations around the church. We listened to Archbishop John Sentamu inspiring us to pray for 5 people to come to know Jesus and then wrote those five names on a bookmark to remind us to continue to pray for them.

It was a wonderful occasion to join with others to worship and pray and hear how God wants to pour out his Holy Spirit on all people. We loved joining in with others around the Diocese and the world in praying for people to come to Christ.

Kingston - Revd Canon Dr Sue Clarke, St Paul's Furzedown writes...

All Saint’s Church in Tooting, designed by Temple Moore at the beginning of the 20th century, was the venue for the Kingston Episcopal Area Pentecost Celebration Eucharist. Over 100 people gathered in the early evening to the sound of the recently restored wonderful Harrrison and Harrison organ. The president at the service was the Area Bishop, the Right Reverend Richard Cheetham and the preacher was Bishop Precious Omuku, former Bishop of South Sudan and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Special Representative on Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa and now with extended Episcopal Care in the Diocese of Southwark. The wonderful diversity of the Kingston Area was celebrated by those attending with the ages ranging from under 10y to over 90y and a spectrum of ethnicities and church backgrounds.

Before the service started, the Revd Mae Christie, vicar of All Saint’s welcomed us to Tooting and we then processed in to the stirring hymn, ‘Come down, O Love divine’. Bishop Richard welcomed us all and we then continued the service of Holy Communion. The first reading from the Book of Acts was started by a glimpse back to that first Feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem as 8 members of the Area churches read the first verses of the passage in their own language- Latin, Igbo, Mandarin, German, Urdu, Yoruba and Melanesian Pidgin before the whole passage was read in English! Following the Gospel reading from St John 20, three members of different Area churches shared their testimonies of coming to faith in Jesus Christ and the leading and directing of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Then Bishop Precious spoke to us about the working of the Holy Spirit in his own life, the life of the Church and in the life of the world. He concluded his talk by showing us a short video of the recent peace talks between South Sudanese leaders in the presence of Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The video ended, most movingly, with Pope Francis kneeling before each of the leaders and kissing their feet. The poignancy of the video was enhanced by the news of renewed political unrest in South Sudan.

Our prayers of intercession were for our Church, our country, our world and ourselves asking the Lord to bless us all and fill us afresh with the Holy Spirit.

The climax of the service was the gathering to receive the bread and the wine from the Bishops and clergy of the Area.

Throughout the service a scratch choir of young people and adults from Area churches lifted our worship with their beautiful voices lead by a member of All Saints, and accompanied on the organ by a local, but nationally acclaimed organist, Mark Pybus.

The joyful service concluded with ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’ and Bishop Richard’s blessing and the dismissal. Those present lingered to chat, enjoy refreshments and to wander round the prayer stations installed during the Thy Kingdom Come period by the churches of Tooting Deanery encouraging prayer for the children and young people of our churches and our area, their schools and their protection from the violence and crime that is prevalent in London today.

Woolwich - Revd Jenny Dawkins, All Saints, Peckham

I always think it’s a good sign when it takes three attempts to gather people together again when they’re sharing the peace.

As worshippers from a dozen or so churches across the Woolwich Episcopal Area came together at All Saints Peckham on Pentecost Sunday evening, we welcomed the Holy Spirit and celebrated in happy unity, and in many languages. It was a taste of that Pentecost in Jerusalem 2000 years ago and a glimpse of the heavenly kingdom which we’re praying for – thy kingdom come!

As well as being led in various aspects of the service by curates from across the area, we also heard from members of the congregation about the variety of ways in which God is at work in our lives and communities – from litter-picking, to answered prayer, to shared meals.

We were especially glad that our Bishop, Bishop Karowei, was able to make an unplanned visit, and he sent us out with a Pentecost blessing.

Archdeacon Alastair encouraged us to receive again, or for the first time, the life-giving in-filling of the Holy Spirit and in response, the congregation was invited to receive anointing and prayer from the curates. There was a sense of deep prayerfulness, refreshment and thanksgiving as we responded to this invitation. Thank you, Lord! I was struck by the number of lives touched by this anointing – not just those who were there, but everyone they pray for and meet as they overflow with this new life and hope.

And after the service, as we continued to celebrate with cake and conversation, I believe the laughter and ‘buzz’ was also a gift of the Holy Spirit at work among us.

God took the ordinary things of oil, words, people, cake, handshakes and hugs, and, by His Holy Spirit, gave us the extraordinary gifts of joy, love, hope and unity, along with His commission to share them with His world. We pray that, as we are transformed and unified by the Spirit of God, so may many be drawn into this transforming love for themselves, that the world may believe (John 17). Come, Holy Spirit!

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pasifikarising · 5 years

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Project by Associate professors, Dr Elatiana Razafi & Dr Fabrice Wacalie with the University of New Caledonia

Blog with Dr Sylvia Frain, Auckland University of Technology

The Pacific is diverse with over 1000 Austronesian languages, 750 Papuan languages and 9 variations of pidgin. From a sociolinguistic point of view, ‘pidgins’, ‘dialects’ and ‘creoles’, are all equally considered ‘languages’ as long as a social group recognises them as both a means of communication and identification. While language diversity across Oceania is the norm and should be celebrated, UNESCO has identified hundreds of endangered languages across this region. Negative representations of multilingualism are partly the cause of this. Research, however, has proven that speaking many languages has cognitive, perceptive, memory, and well-being benefits that help speakers build feelings of belongingness and self-confidence. On a wider scale, the acceptance of linguistic diversity is also a key factor for peaceful and open-minded environments that welcome social diversity.

How many languages do you speak? How about your family members and elders?

Language is well-known as a communication tool but we also shape our social relationships and ways of thinking through languages. The feeling of belongingness is indeed linked to language use. For instance, we spontaneously try to guess where someone comes from based on the way they speak. Likewise, linguistic features can also be used to correct, tease, discriminate or exclude someone. Social rejection is caused by our subjective perceptions of a given language and how it should be spoken.

Discrimination based on language can become commonplace and invisible. Elatiana Razafi and Fabrice Wacalie, researchers from the University of New Caledonia, refer to this as ‘linguistic micro-aggression’. Dr Chester Pierce, an African-American psychiatrist, medical doctor and scholar coined the term ‘micro-aggression’ in the 1970s. The word refers to ‘subtle racial putdowns that degrade physical health of a life time’ describes Elsa Ely. Drawing from this, the concept of “linguistic micro-aggressions” encompasses commonplace slights, corrective insults, normative comments that are specifically aimed at one’s language or linguistic characteristics as such their accent, pronunciation, vocabulary, or spelling. It isn’t necessarily meant to harm but all the same, it reproduces dominant representations. This operates more frequently unconsciously. Nevertheless, and regardless of the speaker’s intentions, the effects can be damaging, especially when experienced by social minorities. It can disrupt language maintenance within a family and this is particularly disturbing within communities who share endangered languages. New Caledonia is no exception to this.

Has anyone asked you, ‘where does your accent come from’? Have they commented on your pronunciation?

Figure 1: Customary Areas and Languages of New Caledonia (Lacito, CNRS, 2011)

The archipelago of New Caledonia roughly consists of 40 ‘Indigenous’ Melanesian languages spoken, including a French Creole and alongside dozens of Polynesian and Asian languages.

Though proven beneficial, linguistic diversity or the ability to speak multiple languages can sometimes be subdued to a hegemonic monolingual policy. This leads to unequal access to social resources. In New Caledonia, French is exclusively the single ‘official’ language as is the case throughout France’s territories. French dominates public services, such as education, media, administration. Consequently, linguistic diversity is often seen as trivial or even as a threat to national unity. This part of New Caledonia’s historical colonial structures continues today through a monolingual ideology. It opposes Kanak and Oceanian languages versus French. Another less frequently addressed issue surrounds the variety of linguistic norms within Kanak languages themselves. Today, young students are working to challenge this artistically.

The AK-100 project: from linguistic micro-aggressions to artistic empowerment

The AK-100 street art project (reads ‘AK-cent’ in French in reference to the word ‘accent’ but also to the hundreds of languages and accents in New Caledonia) seeks to raise awareness of the destructive cultural impacts of ‘linguistic micro-aggressions’. As a form of symbolic violence, linguistic micro-aggressions engender feelings of exclusion, illegitimacy and, as narrated by young Caledonians, it leads to the abandon of Kanak languages when they are daily and durably marginalized. This means that there is a direct link between everyday communication patterns and sustaining larger scale linguistic diversity. A young student shares a family story, witnessing that the accumulation of linguistic micro-aggressions resulted in such discomfort that her father refrained himself from teaching her his native Kanak language.

Do you know similar stories of parents not passing on their language to their children?

Specialising in sociolinguistics, Dr Elatiana Razafi and linguistics for Dr Fabrice Wacalie, asked their students to think of ‘linguistic micro-aggressions’ they experienced. Students were then invited to take self-portraits with the transcript of the micro-aggression and to share the story behind it.

‘We weren’t sure if they would be responsive and were even less able to predict the outcomes. But as the students sent in their work, we realized how much there was to learn from their visual narratives’, Dr Razafi and Wacalie reflected. Exploring the issue through a combination of visual anthropology and street art, they had two objectives in mind:

learn more about the linguistic norms that shun Caledonia’s youth today and raise public awareness on the realities of linguistic micro-aggressions;

empower young plurilingual Caledonians through artistic promotions of linguistic diversity.

Firstly, the pictures show how monolinguistic ideologies (pressure to speak only French) and mononormative (pressure to speak it a certain way) produce everyday linguistic violence. This type of micro-aggression is interlinguistic as it opposes different linguistic communities.

Have you experienced similar micro-aggressive comments? Do you speak one language in school and another at home?

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Figure 2: ‘You speak rather good French for a Kanak who grew up in the Loyalty Islands!’

Figure 3: ‘I don’t like bislama, it’s a weird language. And it’s broken English. It impoverishes my English’

Figure 4: ‘It’s cool you speak good French but you hit the wrong note with your accent!’

Figure 5: ‘So, do you speak French as French people?’

Figure 6: ‘You speak proper French?’

Figure 7: ‘You are the exact Caledonian stereotype with your way of speaking!’

GALLERY 1: Interlinguistic micro-aggressions

Secondly, the students’ stories brought attention to the weight of intralinguistic pressure, i.e. micro-aggressions carried out internally within a linguistic community. Whether at home, amongst their families or at school, they tell us how they have been the target of contradictory imperatives since their childhood. In the case of some Kanak students, the elderly in their tribes expect them to speak ‘indigenous’ languages: ‘Speak our language: it is disappearing!’; ‘You don’t speak your own language?!’ At the same time, they are mocked when they do so. Some are even refused the right to speak a Kanak language: ‘It doesn’t suit you to speak our language’; ‘You’re better off not speaking drehu’. Their pronunciation, the fact they also speak French or their skin colour are amongst the features usually held against them, questioning their legitimacy to be a fully acknowledged speaker i.e. a ‘real’ community member.

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Figure 8: ‘It mixes up Mare and Ouvea and it says it comes from Lifou!’

Figure 9: ‘Yeah right you’re a Kanak! So why are you light skinned?’

Figure 10: ‘It doesn’t suit you to speak our language’

Figure 11: ‘You’re better off not speaking drehu!’

Figure 12: ‘We say fwai, not pwai’

Figure 13: ‘Speak our language; it is disappearing’

Figure 14: ‘So, you don’t speak your own language?’

Figure 15: ‘Sorry but we only hire REAL Viets’

Figure 16: ‘You’re from the French Antilles and you don’t speak Creole? So you’re a fake doudou!’

Figure 17: ‘When you pronounce words in ‘the’ language we can tell you’re a FAKE!’

Figure 18: ‘You say you’re Wallisian but you don’t know your own culture!’

Figure 19: ‘You roll your ‘r’s, I’m telling you!’

Figure 20: ‘Speaking the Lifou language, it doesn’t suit you!’

Figure 21: ‘You’re from Maré but you don’t have the accent!’

GALLERY 2: Intralinguistic micro-aggressions

The project also revealed that linguistic micro-aggressions are borderless. It is not only the speakers of minority languages that experienced discrimination. Students who are associated with the ‘dominant’ social group of ‘whites’ and ‘French-speakers’ have also had to face up to linguistic insults. In this case, they can be stigmatized because of their alleged monolingualism.

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Figure 22: ‘You’re white so you only speak one language!’

Figure 23: ‘You represent the norm!’

Figure 24: ‘You’re mixed race so why are you white?’

Figure 25: ‘Learn to speak the real French!’

GALLERY 3: Micro-aggressions are borderless. Members of the supposedly dominant ‘white’ and ‘French’ community are also in turn concerned

The discussions in class then made obvious the need to raise awareness – beyond the classroom walls – on the disturbing extent of linguistic discrimination as well as on the benefits of linguistic diversity. The visual narratives gathered throughout the project ended up becoming creative means for self-empowerment. Upon discovering one another’s stories, each student felt less isolated with their experiences of discrimination based on their languages. Altogether, they became less shameful and were eager to counter act their linguistic micro-aggressions. A creative collaboration took place with professional graffiti artists Paul Barri alias PaBlöw, and Yann Skyronka, alias Sham Graff. They helped students make posters by aestheticizing their self-portraits printed out in extra-large formats.

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Figure 26: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

Figure 27: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

Figure 28: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

Figure 29: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

Figure 30: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

Figure 31: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

Figure 32: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

Figure 33: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

Figure 34: Students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

GALLERY 4: The making-of scenes: students redesigning their self-portraits with Yann Skyronka

The public’s reactions were immediate. During the paste-up activity, some passers-by would halt while others were amused. Local media took interest by showcasing the students’ narratives. This gave them recognition, for once, they felt their stories were taken into consideration as serious matters. In turn, the presenters of a TV show shared their own experiences of linguistic micro-aggressions.

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Figure 35: Israëla Raleb presents the project on the TV show ‘#lelien’ (Nouvelle-Calédonie la 1ère)

Figure 36: The presenters and participants of the TV show ‘#lelien’ share linguistic their micro-aggressions. Translations of the transcripts they are holding (from left to right) 1) ‘****(insult) ‘ZOR’ (comes from ‘zoreille’, slang for ‘white’) 2) ‘You don’t have the right accent when you speak drehu’ 3) ‘You’re Caldoche and you don’t even have the accent!’ (‘Caldoche’ is slang for native-born European, French settlers and their descendants established in NC) 4) ‘You don’t speak Javanese? You’re a fake “kakane”!’ 5) ‘Wait a sec, you’ve been in NC for how long? Let me teach you how it works…’

GALLERY 5: Israëla Raleb presents the project on the TV show ‘#lelien’ (Nouvelle-Calédonie la 1ère)

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Figure 37: Students taking part in the Street Art activity

Figure 38: ‘Yeah, as if you’re a Kanak! So why are you light skinned?’

Figure 39: Self-portraits of linguistic micro-aggressions pasted on a wall in Noumea.

Figure 40: ‘When you talk we can straight away tell you’re a girl from the North’

Figure 41: ‘We say fwai, not pwai’

Figure 42: Self-portraits of linguistic micro-aggressions pasted on a wall in Noumea.

Figure 43: Students taking part in the Street Art activity

Figure 44: Students taking part in the Street Art activity

Figure 45: Students taking part in the Street Art activity

GALLERY 6: ‘From a class assignment on linguistic micro-aggressions to Street Art in Noumea’

Everyone has experienced normative attitudes regarding their language(s) or the way they speak but very few denounce it publicly. And this is precisely how linguistic micro-aggressions operate. They are maintained by ideologies that justify monolinguistic visions of society (one-language policies) paired with mononormative idealizations of languages (the belief that there is exclusively one ‘correct’ or ‘authentic’ way of speaking). The ‘AK-100’ project has also been presented through several conferences in New Caledonia, Fiji, Vanuatu, France, and England. It is interesting to note how, wherever the location, people easily relate to the students’ visual narratives of linguistic micro-aggressions. It is a daily behaviour we can now look upon differently.

Have you experienced similar stories as the students?

Further academic reading on language-based discrimination:

Blanchet, Ph., 2016, Discriminations : combattre la glottophobie, Paris, Textuel, p. 192

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Speaking back: Challenging linguistic microaggressions in New Caledonia through street art Project by Associate professors, Dr Elatiana Razafi & Dr Fabrice Wacalie with the University of New Caledonia… 1,646 more words

#Kanaky #Micragressions #New Caledonia #Street art

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jibblies · 5 years

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bad languages: anything romance

good languages: finnish and japanese, don't even have gendered pronouns

best language: melanesian pidgin english, no gendered pronouns, only has one preposition and you just have to guess what it means, no unnecessary words or grammar

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musicomexp · 7 years

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Day 6: Leaving Gomai tomorrow, we don’t wanna leave…

I spent my days at Gomai recording under- and over seas in a very noisy jungle on the islands around (Taukuna and Gomai, listen in previous post), diving to the reefs staring in the eye of clown-fish, painting the unbelievable colors of the reef waters, making some binaural tests on sounds of sea bottom with sand and dead corals, and exchanging with the people of Gomai whom we'll miss!

Peter the teacher and his four children, Marta and Chris the diver, and of course all of the kids we met at the village's school when we made a presentation of the expedition. We showed a film about the project - it took a while to find a strong enough generator for the projector, in a village organized without electricity.

This afternoon I boarded a pirogue to go swim ashore with the other kids and learned a few words of the village's language with Meri, Melinda and Anna. There's about 70 local languages spoken in the Solomon, while Pidgin (mixture of Melanesian grammar and English vocabulary) is used to communicate between different islands and provinces. The kids have their local language as mother tongue, then learn pidgin then English at school.

No one lives on the west coast of Bougainville by the sea, due to the old tradition of head-hunting that was conducted by the Shortland Islanders... Peter the teacher told us. So every Thursday, a couple of boats leave Gomai towards the autonomous province of Bougainville to sell Shortland fish to people that still live up in the mountains. Tomorrow morning we’ll say farewell to the bay and the Shortlanders to sail North towards Bougainville then East New Britain Province of Papua New Guinea.

(pics below: the tiny island of Taukuna and its reefs just ashore Gomai, and kids on board Fleur de Passion checking out the hydrophone)

#gomai #ghaomai #headhunters #musicomexp

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wycliffeuk · 7 years

Link

We love the word of God; not least because it brings wholeness and healing. Everybody has a time in their lives when they’ve experienced emotional pain and need God’s healing.

In some of the countries in which we work where people have experienced wars, natural disasters, banditry, rape and other severe traumas, this healing is even more meaningful. We help churches work with the emotionally wounded through trauma healing workshops which apply the word of God to these deep wounds.

On 29 May – 2 June and 5-9 June, trauma healing workshops will be held in Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea (PNG). The first will be taught in English and the second in Melanesian Pidgin, a language of wider communication in PNG. Participants will learn basic biblical mental health principles related to trauma care, explore their own heart wounds and bring them to Christ for healing, and learn to help others heal from trauma.

Trauma healing specialist Sam Smucker explains that these workshops are not isolated but part of a strategy to support the church and help it to engage with Scripture well:

‘I’ve been running several trauma healing workshops here in PNG. I’ve run four Pidgin workshops already and we are planning two more workshops in June, one in English and one in Pidgin.

During these workshops I have been teaching and training a few PNG people who have a heart for helping people heal emotionally. I want to continue running these workshops so that the people I’ve been training feel comfortable teaching and running the workshops. I would love to have a group of trained people who could go throughout PNG and run these workshops for different churches and villages. That’s my vision.

Other workshops being run in PNG include Oral Bible Storytelling and Culture Meets Scripture. Together with Trauma Healing, they are making significant contributions in equipping the Church and helping Scripture come alive in peoples’ everyday lives.’

Please will you pray:

for the workshops, that each participant will have a significant healing encounter with God and understand the principles well so that they can help others

for the people that Sam is training to be well equipped to run these workshops throughout PNG

that many others will encounter God’s love and healing as the principles of the workshops are shared in churches and communities

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uss-edsall · 7 years

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Only the Digger’s natives were pleased by the delay. "Dis Noo Kinni groun,” Buri said, his strong teeth flashing in a delighted grin. He removed his ever-present pipe while stooping to pat the mud fondly. “Noo Kinni groun,” he said, almost crooning. All of them—Buri, Kimbut, and the two others whose names I cannot recall—were from New Guinea. They were proud of it, inclined to look down their splay noses at the other Melanesians who live in the Bismarck Archipelago, the island group in the western Pacific north of eastern New Guinea. They were most especially disposed to scorn the “bush kanaka”—the non-sophisticates who dwelt in the interior beyond reach of the civilizing commerce of the coast. They all spoke pidgin English—the mark of the traveler in their tribes—and they taught it to me during our two dreary weeks in Finschhafen. They told me of their life before the war—the unbelievably simple life of the food-gatherer, apart from the annual few months in the employ (I was about to say exploitation) of planters like the Digger—and I tried to tell them of our own complicated existence. But this was next to impossible. Only when I spoke of the buildings could they comprehend, and these I usually described with the aid of magazine pictures. "You catchem one fella house,” I said, pointing to the bottom story of the Empire State Building. "All right. You catchem ‘nother fella house. He stop along top. All right. You catchem ‘nother fella. You catchem plenty fella, all the same number grass belong donkey. Plenty fella stop along top.” They nodded, eyes big with wonder, sometimes perhaps a shade bigger than need be—for they were consummate actors, and impeccably polite.

Helmet For My Pillow, by Robert Leckie

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werkboileddown · 7 years

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Research with the ‘Are’Are

The ’Are’are people live in the southern part of Malaita in the Solomon Islands (in Melanesia). During the 1970s the population numbered between 8,000 and 9,000. In earlier times the majority of the people inhabited small hamlets in the mountainous interior of the island, and some lived on the edge of the lagoons of the south-west and of the Mara Masika Passage, the strait which separates Small Malaita from the main island. Since colonial times, many villages have been established on the coast.

The traditional economy consists essentially of the shifting cultivation of tubers (taro, yams and sweet potatoes), the breeding of pigs for ceremonial festivities and fishing on the coast. Colonization introduced the production of copra for export and the breeding, on a small scale, of cattle.

Culturally homogenous, the country of the ’Are’are can be systematically divided into two principal zones whose traditional political organization diverges: the south where the hereditary chiefs come from, and the north, where “big men” emerge through their actions, gathering around them friends and relatives, and increasing their prestige by giving funeral feasts in which food, shell money and music are exchanged. The “big men” from the north and from the south are referred to by the same term, aaraha.

This two-fold division is also reflected in the distribution of musical types: in the north, there is only one type of vocal music for men (divination song), while in the south there are three others (paddling song, pounding song, song with beaten bamboos). Among the four types of panpipe ensembles found, one (’au keto) is only played in the north.

The traditional religious practice was the ancestor cult. During my first stay in the country between 1969 and 1970, at least 90% of the population were Christian, about half of them belonging to the South-Sea Evangelical Church, a fundamentalist church with Baptist allegiance, and the other half divided between followers of the Catholic Church and the Melanesian Church (of Anglican origin). The followers of the Catholic and Melanesian Churches continued to perform traditional music. They participated in the traditional funeral festivities and panpipe ensembles could be heard at the inauguration of a church, a dispensary or a school. Attempts were also made to introduce selected elements of traditional music into church service. On the other hand, the members of the SSEC, following the directives of the expatriate missionaries and Melanesian pastors, condemned all traditional music as “devil music,” the spirits of the ancestors being described by them as “devils.” As a result, for all their music the followers of the SSEC had only Protestant hymns of American origin and the songs which some ethnomusicologists have called “Panpacific Pop,” of neo-Polynesian inspiration, accompanied by guitar and ukulele.

This popular music, which the young ‘Are’are sang, usually in pidgin English (the lingua franca of the Solomons) but also occasionally in the ’Are’are language, was widely spread through the radio. From a musical viewpoint these compositions had no features that were specifically ’Are’are or characteristic of the Solomon Islands. The ‘Are’are were very conscious that the musical style of the religious hymns and of these secular songs was imported, and called them nuuha ni haka or ’au ni haka, “song of the whites” or “music of the whites.” On the other hand, the different types of traditional music, each with its own name, were generally described collectively by the expressions “music of custom” or “songs of custom” (‘au or nuuha ni tootoraha), or even more simply as “music of the land (of the ancestors),” ’au ni hanua.

During the 1970s, when these two films were shot, the music enjoyed by the majority and widely distributed through the radio, consisted of the cowboy songs of Australia, a local variant of the Country and Western style. In the request programs on local radio, which satisfied the wishes of those who knew how to write in English, the Beatles were also frequently heard. In 1969 the Solomon Islands radio station only devoted a quarter of an hour a week to traditional music and oral literature.

If during my work in the Solomon Islands, and in my two films, I devoted myself exclusively to traditional music, it was for reasons of urgency and solidarity with the traditional musicians.

The former British Solomon Islands Protectorate includes six main islands and about 100 smaller ones. The total population is relatively small (less than 150,000 in 1969), but it is characterized by great cultural and linguistic variety. Depending upon the linguistic criteria used, there are between 70 and 100 distinct languages. There are perhaps as many musical cultures. The most urgent task then was to document and study the traditional music before certain genres disappeared or were radically transformed. New genres, such as church and popular music, are also changing, but it is easier, at the time when we wish to study it, to nd historical recordings, thanks to the production of records, to the archives of the missions and especially to the radio. In common with the traditional musicians, I did not want to increase the standing of acculturated music. This music, secular and religious, had no need of support: it was already sufficiently sustained by the prestige attached to everything that came from Europeans (political, economic, educational and religious domination). In order to be able to study traditional music, I had to show unambiguously that I was on the side of those who performed it. I could not be a neutral observer. I chose the “side of custom” (po’o ni tootoraha) at the expense of the “church side” (po’o ni sukuru)1; this was a precondition necessary to gain the confidence of the traditional musicians. Today, now that the inventory of different musical genres used by the ’Are’are is complete, it would be interesting to document and study the present situation, with the interactions, conflicts and eventually the intermingling between traditions and popular music.

#solomon islands #hugo zemp #'are'are #malaita

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