Creating the written language from

the spoken by translation

A study in Papua New Guinea
Masahiko NOSE
mnosema@gmail.com
Shiga University, Japan
The 3
rd
ADES, Turkey, 2014, May
Creating the parallel texts: 27slides
1. Introduction of Amele, PNG
2. How to create the parallel texts
3. Analysis & Discussion
4. Conclusion
Languages of New Guinea: my research
City: Madang
c.a. 30,000
people
Amele Speaking Area (based on maps.google.com)
Bel
Siroi
Nobnobo
Haia
Huar
Amele
Jagahala
Market
Timber
company
Madang
Town
Amele: Trans-New Guinea> Madang > Gum Family
5300 Speakers (1987); bilinguals with Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin (English-based creole)
Long graun i no gat man
There is no one on earth

Neighbor languages:
Austronesian: Bel, Takia
Trans-New Guinea: Nobnobo, Siroi
Cultural data between PNG and Asia/Pacific
Amele people are
keeping a traditional
life with fire, river
water and yams, but,
they are accepting
modern styles
Amele people sooner
will use iPhone and
Android, then Twitter
and Facebook.
From Australia and
Christian missionary
English, Christianity, English
Tea/Coffee, Tourism
From Asia, mainly Thailand,
Indonesia, China,
Philippines
Mobile phones, Rice,
Machines, Clothes, DVD-s
Nose (2006 to 2013)
Based on Sein village (Huar)
2006: First visit
2010-: gradually shifting to Amele,
but not totally.

Investigations are conducted by
speaking Tok Pisin and Amele
Dialectal Differences
Roberts 1987,
Haia dialect
My Field note
2006-2013
Huar dialect
My observations (Nose 2013) on Huar, Haia
Huar speakers >>> Haia speakers
Huar speakers recognize that Haia
speakers speak differently
Haia; od-i-na (i: 3s subject marking)
Huar; odo-na (3s marker i is missing)
Huar speakers usually prefer the
shortened or fused forms
Creating the parallel texts: #10
1. Introduction of Amele, PNG
2. How to create the parallel texts
3. Analysis & Discussion
4. Conclusion
Translating World folk tales
English/Japanese bilingual book
Snow White, Ali Baba and the
Forty thives, Hansel and Gretel,
Three little pigs, Pandoras box
Manual translations together
with Amele speaker and me
Later, other Amele speakers
checked the texts
English, and Japanese texts
Amele texts (from my field note)
The Parallel texts: Snow White
English
Once upon a time, long long ago, there lived a beautiful queen, and one winter, as she
sat sewing at her window, she pricked her thumb and three drops of blood fell into the
snow. She looked at the blood through the black window frame and she thought to
herself how wonderful it would be to have a daughter as white as snow, as red as
blood, with hair as black as that black window frame.
Amele
Sain osona, queen ja ac bahic oso birori. Win sain osona, uqan window-na bilimec etec
samah dodon, uqa ebe neel-na bocob gora ied gorodumei sinudunu-nuwen. Uqa gora
feen window asrec-na, odimei uqa dodo isdon, odi melaid oso senene sinu-inigwe.
Odim goroc ac gorani inigwe. Gosi asrec window asrec inigwec.
Japanese
Mukashi mukashi, sono mata mukashi, aru tokoro-ni utsukushii okisakisama-ga
sunndeimashita. Aru fuyu-nokoto, madobe-ni suwatte nuimono-wo shiteitatoki-ni
oyayubi-wo sashite oshimaininari, chi-ga santeki, soto-no-yuki-ni ochimachita. Kuroi
madowaku-notokoro-de sonochi-wo goran-ni natta okisakisama-wa kokoro-ni
omoimashita. Yuki-noyou-ni shiroku, chi-noyouni akaku, kono madowaku-noyouni
kuroi kamino musume-ga umaretara donna-ni iideshou.
Creating the parallel texts: #15
1. Introduction of Amele, PNG
2. How to create the parallel texts
3. Analysis & Discussion
4. Conclusion
Analyzing the parallel texts
Grammatically:
Usages of several discourse markers (next slides)
Different usages of 3S Personal pronouns:
English: he/she (gender distinction)
Japanese: konokata, okisakisama, shirayuki hime
Amele: uqa (3S incl. he and she), queen, Snow White
Lexically: Loanwords from English
Amele borrowed: queen, window, needle
Culturally: from spoken to written texts
Vocabulary size (Deutscher 2010): mec bahic (good, nice,
beautiful, wonderful, fine, healthy)
(4) Discourse markers and demonstrative in Amele
a. odocob (and then)
Connecting the previous sentences
Maintaining topic, Functioning as a conjunction

b. odi, odimei, odimig (like, like this)
Discourse connectives: like this, then,
Meyerhoff (2011: 253-257) claims Introducing discourse

c. uju (demonstrative: that indicating something /
with discovery)
Not found in Haia (Roberts 1987)
Preferably used in topicalization

(5) Snow White c2

Odocob uqa ayan snow-white boin.
And then 3s name-poss snow white call-3s.past

and then she called snow white.
(4) Discourse markers and demonstrative in Huar:
a. odocob (and then)
Connecting the previous sentences
Maintaining topic, Functioning as a conjunction

b. odi, odimei, odimig (like, like this)
Discourse connectives: like this, then,
Meyerhoff (2011: 253-257) claims
Introducing discourse

c. uju (demonstrative: that indicating something /
with discovery)
Not found in Haia (Roberts 1987)
Preferably used in topicalization

(6) Snow White c10
Odi fii ija iteiga,
Then suppose 1s give
elnuc ija uqa kec bahic gabigina.
what 1s 3s like too much love

Then give it to me, because I cannot live without her.
(4) Discourse markers and demonstrative in Huar:
a. odocob (and then)
Connecting the previous sentences
Maintaining topic, Functioning as a conjunction

b. odi, odimei, odimig (like, like this)
Discourse connectives: like this, then,
Meyerhoff (2011: 253-257) claims Introducing discourse

c. uju (demonstrative: that indicating something /
with discovery) *eu (normal that)
Preferably used in topicalization

(7) Snow White c3
Witic uju-na uqan abi-aya uju
Night that-postp 3s-poss work-man that
madocob qe uur uju iriton.
talk heart that cooking

That night she ordered the cook to put them in a stew
and she ate them for dinner,
Creating the parallel texts: #23
1. Introduction of Amele, PNG
2. How to create the parallel texts
3. Analysis & Discussion
4. Conclusion
Conclusion:
The parallel texts make us accessible
to the society without a written
tradition (Amele)
From spoken discourse to written texts
Folk tales are useful for children
Comparable with English and Japanese
Deeper grammatical and lexical analysis
Findings in this study:
1. Loanwords from Tok Pisin and English
Amele borrowed the Western words (mostly
English) by way of Tok Pisin

2. Discourse connectives/ conjunctions
Specific usages of discourse markers in
telling stories

3. Differences in the texts are partly
related to cultural differences
It is not easy to observe the language
without a written tradition (other factors)
Selected References
Texts: Eigo-de yomu Sekai mukashibanashi (Folk Tales from Around the World), Book
1. Benjamin Woodward, 2006. Tokyo: The Japan Times.

Deutscher, G. 2010. Through language glass: Why the World looks different in other
languages. New York: Metropolitan Books
Enfield, N.J(ed.). 2002. Ethnosyntax: explorations in grammar & culture. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Meyerhoff, M. 2011. Introducing Sociolinguistics (second edition). London/New
York: Routledge.
Nose, M. 2013a. Omission of object verbal markers in Amele: Difference in data
between Haia and Huar dialects. Proceedings of the International Workshop on
Special Genres in and around Indonesia: 143147.
Nose, M. 2013b. Information structure in Amele, Papua New Guinea. First
International workshop of the project 'Cross-linguistics perspectives on the
Information Structure in Austronesian languages'.
Roberts, J. R. 1987. Amele. London: Croom Helm.
Stolz, T. 2007. Harry Potter meets Le petit prince: On the usefulness of parallel
corpora in crosslinguistic investigations. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung
60, 100-117.
Thank you for your attention
Acknowledgments:
The villagers of Sein, Papua New Guinea
The Japan Times (Folk tales from around the world #1)
Grant-in-aid for Young Scientists (B), Japan Society
for Promotion of Science, 2011-2013
Contact: nousemasa@facebook.com