Barupu grammar and dictionary materials
| Language | Barupu |
| Depositor | Miriam Corris |
| Affiliation | University of Sydney |
| Location | Papua New Guinea |
| Collection ID | 0037 |
| Grant ID | IGS0012 |
| Funding Body | ELDP |
| Collection Status | Collection online |
| Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/b3f6d304-b883-4d90-af2b-d38dc1b87282 |
Summary of the collection
Barupu is a language of the Piore River family. It is spoken on the north coast of New Guinea in the vicinity of Sissano lagoon west of Aitape. It is spoken by about 2,000 people living immediately south of the lagoon, most of whom previously (before the 1998 tsunami) occupied the old village called Warapu, on the coastal edge of the lagoon, next to Sissano.
Despite Barupu’s relative vitality, there were two reasons for urgency in the documentation of the language. The first being that since the 1998 tsunami, the push to preserve and pass on older people’s knowledge has been very strong. Speakers feel that the deaths of so many elderly people has caused a serious break in linguistic and cultural continuity. The second, more optimistic, reason for the desire to document came from the perceived requirement for a dictionary and other books written in Barupu to continue promoting Tok Ples literacy.
Group represented
There is a strong sense of urgency among Barupu speakers about this work. In 1998 the population of the village was almost halved by a tsunami. Many of the people who died were elderly and one result of this is that speakers feel very strongly about preserving, and, in some cases, resurrecting, old linguistic and cultural knowledge.
Language information
Barupu is still learned by children as a first language, but there are no monolingual speakers. Everyone also speaks Tok Pisin and this is the main language of communication with people outside the village. There is a small group of fluent English speakers (the teachers at the school and other officials), and many young adults have a smattering of English. Closely related varieties are spoken in nearby Ramo and Sumo and they share many lexical items (with some sound changes) and morphosyntactic features.
Barupu is currently not used in any media or mass communication. It is however used inside the village in two public or formal arenas: in the lower years of primary school it is starting to be used for basic literacy instruction; and in council meetings – business is always discussed in Barupu unless this involves people from outside the linguistic community.
Special characteristics
Barupu is linguistically significant for two main reasons. First, it is a tone language, so a description of its tonology adds to the scant but growing literature on New Guinea tone systems (see Donohue 1997), which can thus inform tone typology generally. Second, it has very rich verbal morphology and morphophonology, with apparent infixing, a relatively rare morphological strategy.
The collection is especially important in that it serves a double purpose; it preserves older cultural and linguistic information for future generations, and supports the use of the language now.
Collection contents
This collection consists of Toolbox dictionary files, audio files, and some time-aligned transcripts.
Acknowledgement and citation
To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Corris, Miriam. 2016. Barupu grammar and dictionary materials. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-0001-4055-4. Accessed on [insert date here].
