While Papua New Guinea (PNG) is rightly known as a center of linguistic diversity, Madang Province is a microcosm of this. There are roughly 200 languages spoken in this province alone.

Madang Province also has the unfortunate distinction of being one the areas where language shift is most active in PNG and thus many languages are beginning to be lost, especially among younger generations, where Tok Pisin, locally known as ‘Pijin’, has been replacing heritage languages across the region, especially within the coastal areas.

Matukar Village | Panau Language

In July 2009, under the auspices of the Enduring Voices project, Living Tongues Institute visited with the Matukar [mjk] community who speak the Panau language. The main village is named Matukar (Matugar) but they call their language Panau, which literally means ‘give it to me’ in their language. Living Tongues was requested to send someone to help them develop materials and build capacity necessary to create a Panau written language and educational curriculum.

In early 2010, Living Tongues Institute Fellow Danielle Barth lived in Matukar village and worked with primary consultant Kadagoi Rawad to develop the first deliverable requested by the community in this project, the Matukar Panau Talking Dictionary.

Rudolf Raward, Panau speaker and Living Tongues Institute Indigenous Language Activist, received training and equipment in the spring of 2010 where he created the first book in Matukar Panau, and the first digital storybook as well. There are roughly 400-600 speakers remaining of this Austronesian language that belongs to the Bel-Vitiaz Oceanic subgroup.

 

 

Panim Language

The roughly 400 people who speak the Panim [pnr] language, a Gum Croisilles language belonging to the Madang stock of the Trans-New Guinea phylum all live in a single village called Panim. The language has a rich and complex verb morphology of a type that one expects of a Trans-New Guinea language of the region. A preliminary assessment of the current status, vitality, and documentation level of Panim was carried out in July 2009 by the Enduring Voices team. Living Tongues Institute Fellow Don Daniels began the collection of materials for a Panim Talking Dictionary and Online Grammar during the summer of 2010. The main consultant in the project is Lihot Wagadu.

 

Kambi Wagi Ne Language

The variety of the Wagi [fad] language of Kamba village, Madang Province, PNG called Kamba Wagi Ne belongs to the Hanseman Croisilles family of the Madang stock (Trans-New Guinea Phylum). It is a cousin language to Panim. There are approximately 300-400 speakers of Kamba Wagi Ne, or roughly one tenth of the total speakers of this language. Kamba Wagi Ne is not frequently used in Kamba village, as most speakers now mainly use Tok Pisin in their daily interactions. Our primary consultants are Makani Devam and Avunam Kolav.

Makani Devam & Avunam Kolav, Kamba Wagi Ne consultants