Preliminary Field Investigation of the Bebeli Language, Papua New Guinea
FAIN: FN-50130-14
Hiroko Sato
University of Hawaii (Honolulu, HI 96822-2216)
Bebeli is a highly endangered Austronesian language spoken in the West New Britain area of New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. Tok Pisin, a lingua franca in Papua New Guinea, is the dominant language in nearly all domains, including daily life, among all generations of the Bebeli community. Children are not learning Bebeli any more, and their parents do not teach it to them. The situation is likely to continue or grow worse due to the area's increasing accessibility and the growing oil palm industry, which brings contact with people from different areas. The main goals of this preliminary investigation are (1) to establish a foundation for an ongoing project with the Bebeli community; (2) to build a Bebeli corpus emphasizing culturally significant texts; and (3) to produce annotated recordings and a sketch grammar of the language. With the University of Hawai'i as a base, fieldwork will be carried out on two extended trips to the Bebeli area with the objectives of establishing a relationship with the community and finding consultants; eliciting basic vocabulary, phrases and sentences; and collecting and annotating texts. Data will be archived at the University of Hawai'i Digital Ethnographic Archive. (Edited by staff)
Associated Products
Hiroko Sato collection - Bebeli documentation (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)Title: Hiroko Sato collection - Bebeli documentation
Author: Hiroko Sato
Abstract: This is the collection of Bebeli language and its related languages. It includes audio and video recordings, photographs, and written texts of narratives, public events, and conversations as well as elicited linguistic data. It gives special attention to recording traditional cultural knowledge, because the oral chain of transmission of this kind of knowledge is currently being lost.
Audio data is digitally recorded with voice-recorders (Zoom H5 or Zoom H4n). Sound recordings will be in 48 KHz 24 bits and archived as WAV files. A shotgun microphone was used (Zoom SGH-6). Also, the texts are video recorded with a handy cam (Canon EOS REBEL SL1). OLAC compliant metadata was collected for every item.
Year: 2015
Primary URL:
http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/34526Primary URL Description: Kaipuleohone is the digital language archive of the University of Hawai’i.
The archive houses texts, images, audio, and video collected by linguists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and more. The collection includes a wealth of photographs, notes, dictionaries, transcriptions, and other materials related to small and endangered languages.
The files are curated by the University of Hawai?i library system. Backed by these resources, Kaipuleohone provides a safe repository for priceless and unique materials to help ensure their accessibility for scientific and cultural purposes.