Projekt

The key aims of this project are: 1) to provide substantial audio/video documentation of Bena Bena, a scarcely described endangered language spoken in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The documentation consists of a corpus of primary data, with transcription and translation, representing different types of texts (conversations, narratives such as stories, tales and myths, rituals). 2) Through these texts to document vital but endangered aspects of Bena Bena culture, including stories, myths, traditional beliefs, traditional knowledge, material arts, etc. 3) to assist the community in their efforts to maintain the language. This project adopts the "partner strategy" whereby a team of two researchers, a linguist and an anthropologist, carries out long-term fieldwork in a community. This ensures the cultural contextualization of the linguistic material and adds to its deeper understanding.

• Prof. Dr. Bernard Comrie

  Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre
  Anthropologie
  Abteilung für Linguistik
  Leipzig