Documentation of Ponosakan, a Near-Extinct Austronesian Language of Sulawesi, Indonesia

FAIN: FN-249649-16

Jason W. Lobel
University of Hawaii (Honolulu, HI 96822-2216)

Fieldwork and research for the preparation of a grammar and dictionary on the endangered Ponosakan language of Sulawesi, Indonesia.

This project is intended to continue work documenting and preserving Ponosakan, a near-extinct Austronesian language of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Once the majority language the town of Belang, Ponosakan has long since been fully supplanted in all contexts by Manado Malay, the regional lingua franca. There are now only four surviving communicatively-competent speakers, aged 71, 81, 87, and 91, and all four have expressed their willingess to continue working on this project. On several trips to Belang over the past nine years, Lobel has elicited wordlists and sentences, built a lexical database, made archive-quality digital audio recordings of the four surviving Ponosakan speakers covering a wide range of subject matter, and transcribed and translated these recordings. The main work to be performed during the fellowship period is: (1) to complete a full reference grammar; and (2) to complete a Ponosakan dictionary based on the PI’s lexical database, which currently contains over 2,200 roots. (Edited by staff)

Associated Products

Ponosakan: The Sounds of a Silently Dying Language (Article)
Title: Ponosakan: The Sounds of a Silently Dying Language
Author: Jason Lobel
Abstract: Ponosakan is a near-extinct Greater Central Philippine language spoken on the large central Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Little has appeared in the literature about the language, which now has only four fully fluent speakers, ranging in age from 70 to 92 years old. The purpose of this paper is to present a brief introduction to the language, including its phoneme system and grammatical subsystems. Accompanying this paper are over 300 audio recordings, to give the world an opportunity to hear a language that is rarely spoken even in its traditional home.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/24700
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Language Documentation and Conservation 10:394-423

Ponosakan Talking Dictionary (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Ponosakan Talking Dictionary
Author: Anna Luisa Daigneault
Author: Jason Lobel
Author: Ibrahim Tona
Author: Kader Tawo
Author: K. David Harrison
Author: Gregory D. S. Anderson
Abstract: na
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://talkingdictionary.swarthmore.edu/ponosakan/

Ponosakan Topical Dictionary (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Ponosakan Topical Dictionary
Author: Jason William Lobel
Author: Ibrahim Tona
Abstract: Ponosakan - Manado Malay - Indonesian - English Quadrilingual Topical Dictionary
Year: 2017
Audience: General Public

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