Documentation of Yabong [ybo], a Madang language of Papua New Guinea
| Language | Yabong |
| Depositor | Andrey Drinfeld |
| Affiliation | University of Oregon |
| Location | Papua New Guinea |
| Collection ID | 0827 |
| Grant ID | IPF1030 |
| Funding Body | ELDP |
| Collection Status | Forthcoming |
| Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/7e3e8dd0-7ee0-4fa8-8453-1ee8513c5617 |
Summary of the collection
The Yabong language [ybo] (ISO 639-3 code: ybo; Glottolog code: yabo1240) is a Papuan language of the Madang family spoken by around 1500 people in eight villages in the Rai Coast District of Madang Province of Papua New Guinea – Baded, Basor, Bidua, Gogou, Masi, Deging, Sinange, and Wado. Yabong is a member of the Yaganon subbranch of the Rai Coast branch of the Madang language family, which is itself usually included in the very extensive and distantly related Trans-New Guinea phylum.
Although some languages of the Madang language family (including some Rai Coast languages) are well documented, no language of the Yaganon branch has previously been documented or described in sufficient detail. This collection will, therefore, be the first major documentation and description project on any Yaganon language.
The collection will contain video recordings of naturalistic speech, singing, and cultural events, annotations in ELAN, a dictionary, a collection of written texts, a grammatical description, and various other materials on the Yabong language.
Group represented
The Yabong speaking community lives in eight villages of the Rai Coast District of Madang Province of Papua New Guinea – Baded, Basor, Bidua, Gogou, Masi, Deging, Sinange, and Wado (according to Gray et al. 2015: 4). Baded is located on the sea coast, whereas the other villages are located several kilometers inland.
This community has previously welcomed several linguists and other researchers into the area. For example, a sociolinguistic survey of Yabong and several neighboring languages was conducted by SIL in 2008 (Gray et al. 2015). Nevertheless, beyond some basic sociolinguistic information, a word list, and a few short phrases, little information is currently available on their culture and language. This collection aims to fill that gap.
More detailed information about the community will be added here after the researcher completes his first trip to the area.
Language information
The Yabong language [ybo] (ISO 639-3 code: ybo; Glottolog code: yabo1240) is a Papuan language of the Madang family spoken in eight villages in the Rai Coast District of Madang Province of Papua New Guinea – Baded, Basor, Bidua, Gogou, Masi, Deging, Sinange, and Wado (according to Gray et al. 2015: 4). Baded is located on the sea coast, whereas the other villages are located several kilometers inland.
Yabong is listed in several sources (e.g. Gray et al. 2015) as having a population of 1500 speakers, which is based on data collected during a national census in 2000. In view of rapid population growth in Papua New Guinea over the last two decades, it is likely that the population of the area is now significantly larger (perhaps in the 2000-3000 range). On the other hand, the number of fluent speakers is almost certainly smaller than the total population, since there is some evidence that many children and young people are no longer fluent in the language.
At this point the Yabong language is mostly undocumented. The available information on Yabong is limited to a few short word lists (Gray et al. 2015; Hodgkinson 2008; Z’graggen 1980), a few sentences (Gray et al. 2015), and some basic sociolinguistic information (Gray et al. 2015). Gray et al. 2015 claimed that a writing system for writing Yabong had previously been developed by outside researchers and taught to some community members in order to be introduced into education at local schools. However, no major corpus of texts or naturalistic speech is known to have been produced in the language.
Yabong is a member of the Yaganon subbranch of the Rai Coast branch of the Madang language family, which is itself usually included in the very extensive and distantly related Trans-New Guinea phylum. Within the Rai Coast family, the Yaganon languages are considered to be a highly divergent branch (although exact classifications within Rai Coast have not yet been determined). No language in the Yaganon branch has been well documented or described in detail so far (there is a brief sketch of the Saep language, but it is not a book-length grammar). This project, therefore, aims to produce the first major documentation and description of any language in the Yaganon branch.
Collection contents
There are no materials in this collection yet, since the researcher’s first trip to the Yabong speaking area has not yet been completed. However, the following materials are expected to become available by the end of 2025:
-Video recordings of narratives, conversations, songs, cultural events, etc.
-Annotations in ELAN
-Audio recordings of elicitation sessions
-Description of the orthography
-FLEx database
In addition, the following materials are expected to become available after the entire project is completed:
-Collection of written texts with parallel translations
-Trilingual Yabong-English-Tok Pisin dictionary
-Grammatical sketch
-Ethnographic/anthropological sketch
References
“Gray, Rachel, Hannah Paris, Daryl Pfantz, Dan Richardson & Juliann Bullock. 2015. A Sociolinguistic Survey of the Yabong [ybo], Migum [klm], Nekgini [nkg], and Neko [nej]. (SIL electronic survey reports (SILESR), 2015-005.) Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
Hodgkinson, Barbara. 2008. Yabong Wordlist, Madang Province. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
Voltmer, Brad. 1998. Grammar Essentials: Saep Language, Papua New Guinea.
Z’graggen, John A. 1980. A comparative word list of the Rai Coast languages, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. (Pacific Linguistics: Series D, 30.) Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.”
Acknowledgement and citation
Users of this collection should acknowledge Andrey Drinfeld as the researcher, the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme as the funder, and the Yabong contributors (consultants, speakers, participants, etc.) whose names are listed in the metadata of the bundle being used.
To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Drinfeld, Andrey. 2025. Documentation of Yabong [ybo], a Madang language of Papua New Guinea. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/52c63179-4645-4d2a-860d-fd38ab4f973f. Accessed on [insert date here].
