Panel presentation at the February 2017 meeting of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO).

1. Language
Documentation
and Conservation
in Oceania
Joshua A. Bell (Smithsonian)
Andrea Berez-Kroeker (UH Mānoa)
Lise Dobrin (U Virgina)
Gary Holton (UH Mānoa)
Alex Mawyer (UH Mānoa)

2. The Languages of Oceania
• 1500-2000 languages: 1/3 – 1/4 of the world’s linguistic
diversity! One of the most linguistically diverse areas in the
world
• people are increasingly using languages of wider
communication (Tok Pisin, English, Indonesian, French)
• less extensive multilingualism
• new patterns of multilingualism
• local awareness + concern about language shift and loss

3. 1984
1995

4. Patterns of Language Shift
• Age grading
• Geographic distribution
• High degree of borrowing
• Code switching
• Structural convergence
• Loss of domains, registers (e.g., oratory, baby talk)

5. The Emergence of Documentary Linguistics
• Over the past 25 years has (re)emerged as a distinct subfield
• 1991 – Michael Krauss warns:
• “We must do some serious rethinking of our priorities, lest linguistics go down
in history as the only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance
of 90% of the very field to which it is dedicated.”
• 1992 – UNESCO forms Endangered Languages Committee
• 1998 – Nikolaus Himmelmann argues for distinguishing language
description from documentation, which aims “to provide a
comprehensive record of the linguistic practices of a given speech
community”

6. The Emergence of Documentary Linguistics
• Funding
• 2000 – Volkswagen Foundation DOBES
• 2002 – Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP)
• 2005 – NSF Documenting Endangered Languages program (DEL)
• Infrastructure
• 1992 – Linguistic Society of America Committee on Endangered Languages
• 2001 – Open Language Archives Community
• 2003 – Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archiving Network
• Journals
• 2003 – Language Documentation and Description
• 2007 – Language Documentation & Conservation

7. The Disciplinary Culture of Linguistics
• greater sense of responsibility for all stages of knowledge production
• new consciousness of data sources and multiple audiences
• no historical mistrust of “salvage” to overcome
• greater openness to different intellectual perspectives
• limited resources for thinking about social phenomena
• still very grammar-centric view of language

8. Interdisciplinary Documentation
• The modern incarnation of language documentation is by nature
interdisciplinary, covering a broad range of knowledge domains
• botany
• astronomy
• mathematics
• geography
• food and nutrition
• human relations
• music
• …
• These experiential domains are particularly susceptible to loss, even
in relatively vibrant linguistic communities (Jane Hill 2001)

9. Abui ethnobotany
• Although Abui is relatively well-documented in terms of grammar,
dictionary, and texts, collaborative ethnobotanical work in 2016
provided many new discoveries
• ~500 plant names recorded, mostly new
• Binomial naming and compound ordering
• Importance of root crops, including some (e.g., Amorphophallus) not
previously documented
• Functional naming
• Documented novel plant uses
• Plant-disease syncretism

10. Plant/disease syncretism
takaya ‘ti plant’ (Cordyline fruticosa).
• Leaves are tied onto valuable trees such as
candlenut, areca palm, and jackfruit to create
a protective spell which wards off theft of the
fruits or nuts of that tree.
• Transgressing this protection by taking the
fruits or nuts without permission will cause
the transgressor to suffer the takaya disease
(possibly cerebral malaria, per Chan 2016)
• plant = cause of disease

12. Exploration of LEK in FSM
• Dr. Alexander Mawyer, University of
Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Center for Pacific
Islands Studies
• Dr. Emerson Lopez Odango, Pacific
Resources for Education and Learning
• Dr. Joshua A. Bell, Smithsonian
Institution, National Museum of Natural
History

15. Adding language documentation to an
existing project
1. get decent equipment
2. make good recordings
3. record language in use
4. transcribe and translate at least 10-30 minutes
5. organize files and create metadata
6. deposit with archive
(Alex King 2015)
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Language
documentation is a process and will transform over time.
But you have to start somewhere.

18. Archiving
• Many of you are experts about the Pacific languages spoken where
you work. Your knowledge, notes, and recordings are a treasure.
• Archiving transforms your knowledge and materials into an enduring
record that can be accessed by future scholars and community
members
• Archived documentation provides a window into the history of a
language, often revealing domains of language use and knowledge
which are dormant in the modern language

19. Archiving requires an institutional
commitment
• Your hard drive is not an archive (even if you have lots of copies)
• A website is not an archive

21. • Digital archive with searchable metadata
• Part of world-wide network of language archives
• Can digitize legacy materials
• Facilitate connections between researchers
• e.g., Shelly Harrison’s Mokilese materials
• field notebooks
• open reel tapes
• cassettes
• punch cards
• 1000s of file slips

22. Still from Kal Muller’s film of Tanna Island
dances, Vanuatu (1970-74)
NMNH’s Anthropology Holdings
8 million feet of Film
3 million anthropology objects
9,000 shelf feet of Manuscripts
635,000 Photographs
11,400 Recordings
RECOVERING VOICES
Collaborating with communities to
sustain and celebrate linguistic and
cultural diversity.

23. Bella Bella and Bella Coola delegation to MSC funded by RV community scholars grant
(May 2013)

24. Keneava Henry Ke’a looking posing with
book of F.E.Williams photographs for Purari
Delta elementary schools (2010-2012)
Sebastian Haraha examining a
belt from the Papuan Gulf
collected in 1928 (2014)

26. Looking Ahead
• What would help Pacific
anthropologists mobilize their
linguistic knowledge and
preserve their language
materials?
• How can we build connections
between senior and junior
scholars?
• What role might there be
for ASAO in supporting these
efforts?
bit.ly/LangDocOceania