Documentation of Momu, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea

Language	Fas, Momu
Depositor	Tom Honeyman
Affiliation	Australian National University
Location	Papua New Guinea
Collection ID	0216
Grant ID	IGS0134
Funding Body	ELDP
Collection Status	Collection online
Landing Page Handle	http://hdl.handle.net/2196/40938fd4-6921-4eb3-aa35-85dd26b05128

 

Summary of the collection

This collection consist of a corpus of materials on the Fas (or Momu as it is referred to locally) language. Fas is spoken in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. There are approximately 5000 speakers spread across 19 villages.

The majority of work was carried out in Mori and Savamui village, in the north-east of that region.

 

Group represented

The majority of the work was done in Mori Village, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. The people of Mori are speakers of Eastern (or “light”) Momu.

 

Language information

Momu is the most common autonym for what is otherwise known as Fas. Some speakers like to refer to the language as Mony “language”. Fas is the name of a village on the western side of the part of Sandaun province where Momu is spoken. In early survey work, a group of inland languages (including Momu) were erroneously referred to as the Bembi language.

There are likely two dialects of Momu, however more work on the western side of the Momu speaking villages is necessary to confirm this. Locally, the difference is referred to as “heavy” and “light” Momu. These are referred to in the literature as the western (“heavy”) and eastern (“light”) dialects. This documentation is of the eastern dialect.

 

Special characteristics

This collection, and more from neighbouring languages are archived at PARADISEC:

DOI: 10.4225/72/56E824D3DF242

DOI: 10.4225/72/56E976EF4264F

DOI: 10.4225/72/56E823D9B42E6

DOI: 10.4225/72/56E9791E70B11

DOI: 10.4225/72/56E979242BC02

DOI: 10.4225/72/56E97929BB789

A reference grammar for the language is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/132961

 

Collection contents

Materials in the collection were collected in 4 field trips between 2005 and 2012. Texts and songs were collected from 3 villages: Mori, Savamui, and Mumuru. The majority were collected in Mori.

Texts include wordlists, targeted elicitation tasks, procedural texts, genealogical texts, mythological texts, historical texts, and modern and traditional song.
Songs and targeted elicitation tasks are accompanied by video.

The majority of the collection is audio. Some recordings are accompanied by video. Most of the audio is transcribed, a majority of the transcribed material is translated, mostly into Tok Pisin, and then a majority of that is translated into English.

 

Acknowledgement and citation

DOIs for sub-collections, items and materials are available for use in citation at PARADISEC. Please cite the materials at a level of granularity appropriate for your use. Please also consider citing the following, if relevant:

Honeyman, T. T. 2016. A grammar of Momu, a language of Papua New Guinea (Doctoral dissertation), available at http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-000F-B64C-B. Accessed on [insert date here].

To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:

Honeyman, T. T. 2016. A grammar of Momu, a language of Papua New Guinea. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-000F-B64C-B. Accessed on [insert date here].