4 . 2 . 9 . H I STORY OF RESEARCH I N AUSTRONES I AN LANGUAGES :

4 . 2 . 9 . 0 . I NT RO D U CT I ON

NEW BRITAI N

Ann Chowning

4 . 2 . 9 . 0 . 1 . Lingui s t i c work i n New Britain has b een of three kinds . First , a number of people , mos t ly mis sionaries or anthropologis t s , have learned languages for part icular purpos e s ; in only a very few cases ( Friederici with Bariai , Lanyon-Orgi ll with To 1ai ) has a language b een s t udied for i t s own s ake . These inve s t i gators have p roduced t he handful of pub lished des c ript i ons of individual l anguages , along with many writ­ings from whi ch a l itt le linguis t i c informat ion c an be gleane d . Second , a numb e r o f s urveys have t ried t o name and lo cate all the diffe rent lan­guages spoken on the i s l and . Third , att empts have b e en made to group s ome or a l l of these languages . Conne cted with this last endeavour i s the que s t ion o f whether a p art icular language i s t o b e cons idered whol ly Austrone s i an or not . E ach of these cate gories will be dis cus s e d s ep a­rately .

4 . 2 . 9 . 0 . 2 . Because the earliest European sett leme'nts on New Britain were in the Tolai-sp eaking region of the Gazelle Peninsula , t his lan­guage ( various ly called Tun a , Gunant una , T inat a Tun a , Blanche Bay dia­lect ) was the first , and i s s t i l l the most thorough ly , s t udied of all New Brit ain languages . I n early writ ings , it oft en i s called s imp ly " the New Britain language " . Under the lab e l of Kuanua , it b ecame the official l anguage of t he Methodist Overseas Mis si on ( now p art o f the Unit ed Church ) , and unt i l very recent ly all its act ivities throughout New Britain were conducted in Kuanua . By contrast , Roman Catholic ( Sacred Heart ) mi s sionaries did n ot use Tolai out s i de the Gazelle Penin­s ula , relying inst ead on Pidgin English or learning the local l anguages ,

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Chowning, A. "History of Research in Austronesian Languages: New Britain". In Wurm, S.A. editor, New Guinea area languages and language study, Vol. 2, Austronesian languages. C-39:179-196. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1976. DOI:10.15144/PL-C39.179 ©1976 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative.

1 8 0 A . CHOWNING

b ut they have p roduced much literat ure on and in Tolai , as well as oft en comp aring other New Britain language s with it . De spite s ome dis agree­ment s , especially as regards pos s ib le c onnections between Tolai and the

Nakanai language ( or sub - family of two languages , Meramera and West Nakanai ( Laka lai ) ( Chowning 1969 ) ) which ext ends we st along the north c oast b e low t he Gazelle Peninsu l a , it has been generally agreed not only that Tolai is separat e from the other Aust rone s ian languages of New Britain , b ut that i t s c losest re lat ives are on New Ire land and the small neighbouring is lands . Beaumont has accordingly inc luded i t , as a member of h i s Patpat ar-Tolai Subgroup , in his discuss ion on New I re land languages ( see Beaumont 1972 ) , and I shall not duplicate what he s ays . I n the fol­lowing dis c us sion , then , I shall omit Tolai , and ment ion only the other Aust rone s ian languages of New Britain .

4 . 2 . 9 . 1 . D E S C R I PT I ON S

4 . 2 . 9 . 1 . 1 . According t o Laufer ( 19 66 ) , many New Britain language s have b een des cribed by Roman Catholic priest s , b ut very few of these de s c rip­tions have b een pub lished , and it is feared that many of the manus crip t s were l o s t during World War I I . Of the material that has b een pub li shed , very lit t le consists o f more than wordlis t s ; t hese will be discussed b e low . The first more det ailed ac counts of Aust rones ian languages other than To lai appeared in 19 0 7 : Father Mulle r ' s grammar of Mengen , and a very b rief account of Nakanai ( the easternmost dialect , Me lamela or Meramera) in Parkin s on , who acknowledges his indebt edne s s t o Fathers B ley and Ras cher for the informat ion on this and other languages ( Parkinson 1 9 0 7 : 72 4 ) . Mulle r ' s material is much fuller , dealing with s uch prob lems as the different ways o f forming the p lural in Mengen , b ut it i s s t i ll s o b rie f as t o leave unanswered many quest ions about the p o s s ib le non-Aust rones ian influences on ( or nat ure o f ) Mengen grammar .

4 . 2 . 9 . 1 . 2 . The ne xt des cription t o appear was much more det ai le d . Friederic i ( 19 1 2 ) dealt with b oth t he phonology and the grammar o f Bariai , near t h e north-west ext remity of t h e i s land , a s well a s giving a lengt hy vocab ulary . The se dat a laid the ground for his comparat ive s t udy of the affi liat ions and possib le origin of the language , t o b e des crib ed b e low . Doub t s may b e exp res sed about s ome o f h i s con c lusions ( for examp le , the - r a he c on s iders a s uffixed art i cle is almost cert ainly j ust the 1st person p lural inc lus ive possess ive s uffi x ) , b ut the material as a whole looks accurat e t o one working with Kove , the closest re lat ive of Bariai .

4 . 2 . 9 . HISTORY AUSTRONESIAN RESEARCH : NEW BRITAIN 1 8 1

4 . 2 . 9 . 1 . 3 . In 1915-16 , there appeared in Anth4opo� t he work of Father Hee s . Hees was s t at ioned in East Nakanai , b ut for s ome reason b e c ame fas c in ated with t.he language and .culture of the westernmost Nakanai ( Lakalai ) , whom he neve r vi s ited . He learned the language from a few schoolb oy s , and re corded many t e xt s whi ch he pub lished a long with verb a­t im t rans lat ions . The t ext s contain s ome misprint s ( such as n , whi ch Lakalai l acks , for u ) and occas i onally Hees mis understood a construc t i on or met aphor, b ut the errors are few and mino r . He des cribes the phonol­ogy , notes the di fferences b etween the east ern and western dialec t s ( p art i cularly as regards lexicon ) , and c ompares Nakanai with Tolai and Pal a o f New Ireland . A few interlinear t rans lat i ons i l lust rate gram­mat ical point s .

4 . 2 . 9 . 1 . 4 . Since Hees wrot e , only one other det ai led de s c ript ion has appeare d : that of Count s , an anthropologi s t , des c rib ing the Kaliai dia­lect of Kove ( 19 69 ) . Count s c oncentrate s on phonology and grammar , and gives only a little lexical material ( some of which rep re sent s b orrowings from Pidgin ) .

4 . 2 . 9 . 1 . 5 . At present , Summer Inst itute o f Lingui s t i c s linguis t s are working b oth in Ki lenge , at the western t ip of New B rit ain , and in Lakalai , so that much more mat erial on t he s e languages should be avail­ab le short ly .

4 . 2 . 9 . 1 . 6 . In addit i on , at least two anthropologist s have presented p apers at internat ional congre s s e s which cont ain a fair amount of de­s cript ive mat eria l : Goodenough ( 19 61b ) on the languages of the Willaumez Peninsula , with part icular at t ent i on t o lexi con , Chowning ( 19 6 6 ) on the Pasismanua diale cts of south-west New Britain , with s ome data on grammar as well as leXicon , and Chowning ( 19 7 3 ) on Lakalai and Kove . Of the s e , Goodenough ' s s t i l l unpub lished paper has received cons i derab le attent ion from lingui s t s . A s e c ond paper b y Goodenough ( 19 6 1 a ) is more appropri­ately discussed b elow .

4 . 2 . 9 . 1 . 7 . Ap art from these at temp t s , however b rie f , t o deal with va­rious asp e c t s of the l anguages , a number of wordli s t s have b een pub lishe d , which b etween them c ontain mat erial from all the maj or language groups in New Britain . They will be dis cus sed in connect ion with the compara­t i ve work .

182 A. CHOWNING

4 . 2 . 9 . 2 . S U R V E Y S

4 . 2 . 9 . 2 . 1 . Many o f the writers alre ady menti oned have noted name s and locat ions of languages in small are as of New Britain , and one p ub licat i on ( Allen and Hurd 19 6 3 ) i s wholly devot ed t o such a small-s cale s urvey , b ut there have been only a few at temp t s t o cover t he whole i s land : by Meyer ( 19 32 ) , Capell ( 19 5 4 , 19 6 2 a , 1971 ) , Laufer ( 19 6 6 ) , and Chowning ( 19 69 ) . Because Meyer ' s work , though very b rief and litt le-known , s eems to have great ly influenced b oth Cape ll and Laufe r , it will be des cribe d first .

Meyer s imply present ed a map of New Britain w ith a det ailed legend . As i s s o oft en the case , there are seve ral dis crepancies b etween the names on the map , inc luding the c la s s i ficat ion of languages as Melanes i an , Papuan , or mixe d , and the le gend . The languages listed as Mel anes ian in b oth p laces are t he following ( w ith my des ignat ions in p arentheses where t hey diffe r from or c lari fy Meyer ' s ) : Gunantuna ( Tolai ) , Birar ( Tolai ) , Me lame la ( East Nakana i ) , Muku ( Lakalai ) , Mai ( Xarua ) , Bakovi ( Bola ) , Vit u , Kove , S ahe , Bariai , Arave , Lot e ( Uvol ) , Sias i . There is no dis­put e about calling t he s e languages Aust rones i an , though it seems uncer­t ain that S ahe deserves separate s t atus ( Chowning 1969 : 2 7 ) . I n addit ion , on the map onl� Boroqoroqo is shown in the Mamus i re gion and des i gnat ed as Me lanes ian . The legend lists as "mixed Me lanesian-Papuan" Tumuip , Menge n , Tulil [ s i c ] , Idne , Bau ( Kap ore ) , and s omet hing whi ch I cannot read . I h ave noted elsewhere ( Chowning 1969 ) that I consi der Tumuip , Mengen , and Kapore Aus trone s ian , Tauli l non-Aust rone s ian , and have no in formati on on I dne . Only Baining and Sulka are called Papuan in the legen d , b ut on the map Maseki ( presumab ly Mangseng, though t oo far west ) i s also s o des i gnat e d . Several other languages appear o n t h e map b ut are not c l as si fied . Along with " Mako lukolu-Koul " , which certainly des ­ignates one or more non-Aust rones i an languages , they inc lude Bul u , at the t ip of the Willaumez Penins ula ( cert ainly Austrones ian ; see Goodenough 19 61a ) ; Logologo , in the interior at the base of the Wil laumez Peninsula ( pos s ib ly related to Kapore ) ; Pau , inland from Me lame la ( a dialect of Menge n ) ; and Mio , very near Pau . This last i s unknown ; it may b e a dialect of the non-Aust rones i an Ko l , whi ch is roughly in the s ame re gion .

Along with the map , Meyer gives the first line of t he Lord ' s P raye r in seve ral o f these and s ome New I reland Languages , i n order t o show the di fferences between them.

4 . 2 . 9 . 2 . 2 . In his two s urveys ( 19 5 4 , 1962a) , Capell has copie d these lines , though somet imes altering the spe lling and the names of the lan­guage s . A few typ ographi c al errors have also crept i n ; the Lakalai

4 . 2 . 9 . HISTORY AUSTRONESIAN RESEARCH : NEW BRITAIN 183

( there called Muku) and Kove t ext s are les s accurate in Capel l ' s version than in Meyer ' s . It seems likely that the name s , c l as s i fi cat ions ( as Aust rones ian or not ) , and locat i ons for s ome languages on Capel l ' s maps c orne from Meyer ; examp les are Idne and "Maseki" . Capell doe s change s ome language names and locat ions , and adds s e veral languages not men­tioned by Meyer . A ls o , in 1 9 5 4 he c l as s i fied I dne and Tumuip as non­Mel anesian b ut Mengen as Melanes i an . In 1 9 6 2 a , howeve r , h i s map shows all three languages as "mixed Me lanes i an-Papuan" , along with Maseki and Lakalai ( there called Bi leki ) . No e xplanat ion i s given for the change or for any of t he c lass ifi cat ions . In the t e xt ( 1962a : 90 ) , Nakanai is called Me lanes ian ( and the b ib li ographical reference i s t o Hees 1915-16 on Lakalai ) , and so i s Menge n , while Idne and Tumuip are said t o b e "non-Me lanesian" "with n o avai lab le informat ion o n Bau ( which is not on the map ) and Mas eki " . Apart from the se discrepancies , b oth the 1 9 5 4 and the 1962 maps show c on fusion about the locat ion of t he Nakanai group of languages . In 19 5 4 , ' Nakanai ' appears only where i t s easternmost dia­lec t , Me lame la , is sp oken . In 1962 , ' Meramera ' appears at that locat i on , ' Nakanai ' i s farther west , two of i t s western dialects ( Maututu and Ve le ) are in approximate ly their correct locations b ut apparent ly not recogni­s ed as p art of Nakanai , and Lakalai ( ' B ileki ' ) is corre ct ly located b ut , as note d , incorre c t ly c l as s l fied . In the s amp les from the Lord ' s Prayer , Capell has re labe lled Meyer ' s Me lame la ' Nakanai ' b ut ret ained ' Muku ' for Lakalai , although Muku does not appear on t he map . On the who le , it cannot be said that these two surveys sub st antially c larify the s it uat i on west o f the Gaz e lle Peninsula .

4 . 2 . 9 . 2 . 3 . Laufer has pub li shed two l i s t s of New Britain language s , in t he first one ( 19 4 6- 49 ) concent rat ing on languages he cons idered non­Austrones ian , and in the second ( 19 6 6 ) t rying to cover the who le of New Britain as we ll as adj acent smaller i s lands . When the Duke of Yorks and the Siasi Is lands are removed , we are le ft with twenty-three ' languages ' , s ome of which are said to contain various dialects , for the whole of New Britain . Approximate locations are give n , but there is no map and no explanat ion , other than geography , for the group ings . In s ome cases , as his No . 15 ( "Arave " ) and his No . 2 4 ( "Muku-Lakalai " ) , he has cert ainly listed as dialec t s of the s ame language s ep arat e languages which have no c lose gene t i c re lat ion , as may be s een if one c ompares the lists for A

Kinum and Moewe-Haven ( both Laufer ' s No . 15 ) in Chinnery ( 1 926 ) , or for Bileki and Mangseng ( two of the very mixed b ag of languages in his No . 2 4 ) in Goodenough 19 61a . Although t he list is part icularly useful as indi ca­t ing what languages had b een s t udied by Catho lic priests up t o 1 9 5 4 , when Laufer left New Brit ain , it als o reveals their confus ing hab it of calling

1 8 4 A . CHOWNING

languages b y the name of the local mis sion stat ion . In at leas t one c ase , that of Bau , this has led to real confusion ; Bau is used to des­i gnate Kapore ( Banaule ) by the mis sion , and a di fferent , though re lat e d , language by the speakers o f the latter ( see Allen and Hurd 19 6 3 : 7 ; Chowning 1969 : 31 ) .

In t he 1 9 6 6 art i c le , Laufer does not dist inguish between Austrones ian and n on-Austrones ian languages , although a number of those he l i s t s are unque s t i onab ly non-Aust rones ian . In s e veral cases , however , he inc ludes a language des i gn ated in 1946-49 as fully or p art ly Papuan ( i . e . non­Austrone s ian ) under the same numeral as one which has alway s b een c on­s idered fully Aust rones ian ( e . g . , his No . 22 , where ' Longo ' and Aria are put with Kove ) . He also not e s that o ft en nothing is known about a p ar­ticular language b ut its name and approximate locat ion . We may , then , t reat h i s l i st as a guide to further research on the p os s ib le ident ities and affi li at i ons of language s said to have been spoken in part i cular regi on s , rather than t aking it more serious ly .

4 . 2 . 9 . 2 . 4 . Chowning 1969 was writt en without knowledge of Meyer ' s map or Laufe r ' s 19 6 6 art icle . It attemp t s to do three things : t o locate the n amed languages ( omitt ing those mentioned only in the s e two s ource s ) ; t o decide , o ften o n the b a s i s of manus cript materials , which languages can b e c onsidered Aust rones ian ; and t o group these . There are gap s on the map b e cause o f lack of dat a , e specially for part s of the interior and the south c oast ; the data for the north coast are much fuller and more accurate . I t i s neverthe less hoped that fuller informat ion will ult i­mate ly make it p o s s ib le to reduce the number of separate " fami l i e s " ( see b e low 4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . ) .

4 . 2 . 9 . 2 . 5 . In his latest work ( 19 7 1 ) , Capell mentions Chowning 1969 ( as " 19 6 8" ) s e veral t imes , b ut obvious ly does not accept its clas s i ficat ions . He is not wi lling t o call Tumuip and Mengen Austrones ian , and his map of language distribut ions diverges at s e veral point s . He still misp laces and mis c l as s i fies Lakalai , as s igning the name to other Nakanai diale c t s and putting t h e Lakalai-speaking re gion in with Bola . H e entirely ig­nores the l anguage groups postulat e d for the s outh coast , only not ing t he putative locations of two Arawe diale ct s ( not stated t o be s uch ) for which he colle cted the data hims e l f , and leaving the spaces between them b lank . The 1971 map also omi t s s ome languages ( Kapore , Lote , Mamus i ) which were c lass ified as Me lane s ian on h i s 1962 map . In several c as e s he has ignored languages for which pub lished mat erial i s avai lab le ( some of which he cites in his comparat ive voc abularie s ) while inc luding one l anguage , Sahe , for which it is not ( Map 3 , p . 2 55 , and Tab le V , p . 27 0 ) .

4 . 2 . 9 . HISTORY AUSTRONESIAN RESEARCH : NEW BRITAIN 1 85

The map in Capell 1971 is much less complet e than that in Capell 1962 and the one in Chowning 1969 .

4 . 2 . 9 . 3 . W O R D L I S T S

4 . 2 . 9 . 3 . 1 . Both in connection with surveys , and as a guide t o the clas­sification of New Britain languages , a number of comparative wordlists have been pub lished . It is difficult to appraise their accuracy unless one has made a detailed study of the languages concerned . Because of such studies , I am in a position to crit icise one wordlist ( "Kobe " , my Kove ) in Friederici 1912 , one ( "A Kinum" and "Apui " , my Kaulong-Sengseng) in Chinnery (1926) , and two , Nakanai and Kove , in Capell 19 7 1 , but am un­ab le t o say much about the others . Since Chinnery collected all his wordlists personally ( except those for the Umboi and Siasi language s ) and under the same conditions , one i s inc lined to assume that the same sorts of errors may appear in all his list s . The situation i s different with Friederici and Capell , who collected some lists personally but take others from pub lished sources ; Friederici had also made a detailed study of one of his languages , but Capell had not ( apart from Tolai ) , and Capell also states , with regard to New Ireland ( 1971 : 2 5 6 ) that some ma­terial " is drawn from other sources acting on the writer ' s behalf" . In these cases , the inaccuracy of one list tells us nothing about another one . It is worth noting , however , that so far as I can j udge , Chinnery c ontains many mistranslat ions - for example , the names of colored obj ects rather than simple color terms - while such mistakes are very rare in Friederici ' s and Capell ' s list s . These latter tend to err in phonology , in ways that suggest that the informant ( or recorder? ) was not a nat ive speaker .

4 . 2 . 9 . 3 . 2 . The published lists are as follows : Dempwolff ( 1905 ) contains them for Maleu ( Ki lenge ) and Vitu . Parkinson ( 19 07 ) , in addition to Nakanai ( Me lame la ) , has Tumuip and Mengen , comparing them with the neigh­bouring Sulka . Friederici collected , in addition to Bariai , lists in Kilenge , Kove , Nakanai ( East ) , Arawe , Vitu , and has copied Mengen and Tumuip lists from Parkinson . He also has a few words of a language called Longa . Chinnery ( 19 2 6 ) has Pulie ( a Lamogai language ), Moewe-Haven ( Arawe ) , and A Kinum-Apui ( a mixture of two Pasismanua dialect s ) ; these are compared with Sias i languages . Goodenough ( 19 61a) has Mangseng ( like Pasismanua , a Whiteman language ) , Kapore ( another ) , Bileki ( Lakalai ) , and Bulu ( Willaumez ; like Lakalai , a Kimbe language ) . Capell ( 19 7 1 ) has Nakanai ( a mixture of Lakalai and Melamela ) , Bola, Kove , Bariai , Kilenge and its diale ct Maleu, four dialects of Arawe ( Kumbun , Moewehafen ,

186 A. CHOWNING

A Kolet , and Solong) , A Kinum ( see above ) , Pulie ( see above ) , Mengen , and Tumuip . A cons iderab le amount of this material comes direct ly from Parkinson , Friederici , and Chinnery . Unfortunately , even a single writer may not collect the same lists of words for different languages , and it is difficult to make much comparative use of most of the wordlists j ust mentioned .

4 . 2 . 9 . 3 . 3 . I n addition to Bariai , one other language , Melamela , has an extensive vocabulary availab le for consultation ( Bischof 19 61 , where the language is called Ubili ; I have not seen this ) . Others exist in man­us cript form, with eventual publicat ion planned ( e . g . , for Lakalai , by Goodenough and Chowning) . But at present , the only New Britain language apart from Tolai on which a considerable amount of lexical material has been pub lished is Bariai .

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . G ROU P I N G

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 1 . The principal reason for collecting and pub lishing wordlist s has often been not the filling i n o f b lanks on the map , but the determina­t ion of subgroups . In general , however , this has been preceded by the attempt to decide whether a part icular language is wholly Austronesian or not . I t has been noted that considerab le vacillation is evident , part icularly as regards a few languages ( such as Mengen and Tumuip ) . Sometimes the uncertainty reflects simple lack of evidence , sometimes the fact that individuals differ in their ideas of what makes a language Austronesian , and sometimes we have no way of knowing why a classification is assigned or changed . Capell has given some indication of the gram­matical features that seem to him typi cal of non-Austronesian languages ( 19 6 2b : 371-2 ) , but he does not hesitate to characterize as wholly or part ly non-Austronesian languages for which no grammatical data are availab le ( see 1962b : 375 ) . Like other writers who do the same ( e . g . , Loukotka 1957 ) , he seems to be relying on the number of words with ob­vious cognates in Indonesian ( or Proto-A�stronesian ) and the actual shape of words ; one assumes that initial consonant clusters , for examp le , s imply look non-Austronesian . Some of these assignment s are questioned in Chowning 1966 and 1969 . The lack of agreement among linguists as to what constitutes an Austronesian language means that the pOSition of cert ain New Britain languages will cont inue to be disputed . For purposes of discussion , I shall continue for the present to treat as Aust ronesian all those languages so labelled in Chowning 1969 .

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 2 . Capell ( 19 69 , 197 1 ) has also been concerned with dividing the Austronesian ( AN ) languages of Melanesia between two great groups

4 . 2 . 9 . HISTORY AUSTRONESIAN RESEARCH : NEW BRITAIN 187

that he calls ANl and AN2 · As Beaumont has pointed out ( 1972 : 10 ) , he reverses these labels between the two works . The division corresponds to some extent to that set up by Friederici ( see below ) : languages in one category have subject-object-verb word-order in sentences and , among other features , the preposed genit ive , and are concentrated on the main­land of New Guinea , and those in the other category have subject-verb­obj ect order and the postposed genitive , and are concent rated in "Island Melanesia" . It is assumed that the first category has been influenced by non-Austronesian languages .

In 1969 , Capell put all of New Britain in the "is land" category ( Map 2 ) , and says ( p . 2 3 ) : "The AN2 type is most firmly seated in New Britain and New Ireland , and may indeed have radiated out from that centre . " Within New Britain , Lakalai and Tolai are put together in a separate group from the languages of the western section : Bola , Vitu , Kove , Kaliai , Bariai , Sake [ s i c ] , Kilenge , and Arawe . No other languages are mentioned , and the reasons for the lumping together of these last are not given . In 19 71 , however , Capell seems to have separated Tolai from the Nakanai languages and their close relatives , though there are ambi­guit ies in his discussion of "northern New Britain" , Tolai being treated under two headings ( p . 26 5 ) . As regards the ANl/AN2 distinction , Bariai is now ( p . 2 44 ) the only New Britain language assigned to the mainland category . A descript ion of the di fficulties of applying these categories to New Britain languages , as well as the insistence that Bariai cannot be separated from Kove and Kilenge on grammat ical grounds , may be found in Chowning 197 3 . Certainly Capell is correct , however , in not ing that the languages t o the west of the Willaumez Peninsula ( the ' Bariai Fami ly ' in Chowning 1969 ) are grammatically very different · from those to the east of it ( the ' Kimbe Family ' , which inc ludes Nakanai ) .

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 3 . Milke ' s work had something in common with Capell ' s , especially as regards his attempts to dist inguish a special subgroup of Austronesian , called New Guinea Austronesian (NGA ) , which would include almost all of the Austronesian languages of the island of New Guinea , and some of those of the adjacent is lands ( Mi lke 19 61 , 1965 ) . Here we are only concerned with his t reatment of New Britain languages . Brie fly , he thinks that the Bariai and Kimbe languages belong in New Guinea Austronesian because ( a ) the former share with New Guinea Austronesian the preposed genitive , and it s absence in Kimbe can be attributed to influence from Tolai , and ( b ) there are "many isoglosses connect ing Nakanai with the languages of westernmost New Britain and of the mainland of New Guinea" ( 19 6 5 : 33 2 ) . He also suggests ( p . 3 3 8 ) that they are united on phonological grounds . I have argued elsewhere that Milke was incorre ct in putt ing Kimbe and

188 A . CHOWNING

Bariai together , or in tying Kimbe to the mainland of New Guinea , but that he was correct as regards Bariai ( Chowning 19 7 3 ) . ( This argument leaves aside the question of whether the Austronesian languages of New Guinea form a single subgroup . ) Capell ( 1971 : 29 7 ) also doubts Milke ' s theory , at least as regards phonology and grammar .

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 4 . The part of the theory that links Bariai with the mainland of New Guinea explicitly derives from Friederici ' s second pub lication on the language ( 19 1 3 ) , in which he explores in detail the re lat ions between Bariai proper and other languages of New Britain , New Guinea , more dis­tant parts of Melanesia, and western Indonesia . This was the first real­ly detailed work in comparative linguistics devoted to a New Britain lan­guage other than Tolai , and it is impressive . Cons idering the paucity of his data , he does succeed in demonstrat ing the regular sound-shift s between Kilenge , Bariai , and Kove , and once h e had established his ' Bariai-group ' , he is equally painstaking in trying to trace connections with other languages . Grammatical data are weighted as heavily as lex­ical , though again he suffered from insufficient informat ion about the distribut ion of certain features , such as pronominal forms . Friederici ' s conclusions were that : ( a ) the Bariai Group shares a common history with some of the languages of the north coast of New Guinea, such as Jabim ( Yabem) and Bukaua, but since separating, each group has differentiated under the influence of languages already present in New Guinea and New Britain ; ( b ) the Bariai Group resembles the languages of the ' Western Papuo-Melanesians ' ( Motu and its neighbours ) more than the languages of the Solomons ; and ( c ) because of some isoglosses which separate Bariai and some languages of western Indonesia from languages farther west in Melanesia , the Bariai are fairly recent migrant s from a "Gegend . . . die durch die Linie Sud-Philippinen, Nordost-Celebes , Molukken bezeichnet wird" ( Friederici 1913 : 12 , 17 ; 19 12 : 2 15 ) . The third point seems gener­ally to have been ignored , although Grace mentions it in a mildly derog­atory way , but there is every reason to say that Friederici was quite right about the t ies between Bariai and some languages of the north coast of New Guinea , and its resemb lances , in at least some gran�atical fea­tures , to Motu ( see Cape ll 19 7 1 , Chowning 19 7 3 , Hooley 1970 ) .

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 5 . The poss ible external ties of another group of New Britain languages were discussed by Goodenough ( 19 61a) . Whi le working among the Lakalai ( whom he called Bileki in this paper) , he and C . A . Valentine , another member of his team , collected wordlists for a number of languages spoken on and near the north coast . Goodenough used some of his material to show that Lakalai differed notab ly from some of the nearby Austronesian

4 . 2 . 9 . HISTORY AUSTRONESIAN RESEARCH : NEW BRITAIN 189

languages , and then suggested that on several grounds it merited inc lu­sion in a subgroup proposed by Grace ( 1959 ) , consist ing of Fij ian , Rotuman , and Polynes ian , which Goodenough christened Central Oceanic . Goodenough part icularly stressed the t ies between Lakalai and Fij ian , and suggested that Nakanai and its relatives ( later called the Kimbe lan­guages ) arrived in New Britain as the result of a back-migration from the east . Goodenough ' s data have been criticized by Milke ( 1965 : 3 3 2 ) , and with some j ustification ; lack of familiarity with other Melanesian lan­guages let Goodenough propose as uniquely shared features some which have a much wider distribution ( e . g . , a word for b Zood derived from Proto­Austronesian *ce ( n ) ce n . and the development of a consonant before words that in Proto-Austronesian begin with * a - . ( On the other hand , b oth Milke and Capell ( 1971 : 26 6 ) seem not to have realized that the resem­blances in plural pronouns between the two sets of languages do not de­pend on the fact that they seem to be derived from t rials , but that they lack the / 1 / which appears in the word for three . See Grace 1959 : 4 4 . ) Capel l , who apparently does not understand the "principle of least moves" invoked by Goodenough , is re luctant to accept the back-migrat ion sug­gested, and seems impressed by Milke ' s arguments , but agrees with Goodenough that languages in the Kimbe group are more similar to those of Central Oceania than to other Austronesian languages in New Britain , and concludes that "the subj ect remains open for debate" ( Cape ll 19 7 1 : 318 ) . More recent ly ( 19 7 1 , 19 7 3 ) , Chowning ( another member of Goodenough ' s team) has suggested a modification of Goodenough ' s theory , stressing the resemblances between the Kimbe languages and those now called Eastern Oceanic , and st ill postulating that the Kimbe-speakers reached New Britain from the east .

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 6 . In 196 3 , Allen and Hurd , of the Summer Institute of Linguis­tics , published a proposed grouping of the languages of one small region in West New Britain . This is the only pub licat ion resulting from several Summer Instit ute of Linguistics surveys in New Britain . Groupings are based purely on lexicostatistical counts , and no wordlists are given . Their classification generally agrees with that proposed by others , ex­cept that they ( like Dyen ) inc lude as Austronesian a language (Was i , Ata , Peleata) which is probably non-Austronesian but has borrowed a number of words from surrounding Austronesian languages ( see Chowning 1969 : 20 ) .

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 7 . Three other attempts to group New Britain languages have re­lied heavily on lexicostat istics , which were also used by Goodenough . Except in the case of Dyen , this re liance primarily reflects the fact that for many languages , wordlists were the only data availab le . The

190 A. CHCMNING

first such attempt was Grace ' s , based on a preliminary examination of a few list s . He put "northern" New Britain ( the Gazelle Peninsula) with New Ire land , in his Group 11, and "southwest New Britain" , together with the Siasi Is lands and some of the languages of the nearby north coast of New Guinea , together int o his Group 12 ( Grace 19 55 : 3 39 ) . This classifi­cation , which preceded Grace ' s own fieldwork in Melanesia , has long been abandoned by Grace himself . Although he was roughly correct in sugges­ting that there were ties between the Gazelle Peninsula and New I reland , on the one hand, and part s o f west New Britain and New Guinea , on the other , there is no reason to believe that the Austronesian languages of New Britain fall into only two groups .

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 8 . Indeed, their great divers ity was first stressed by Dyen . He had wordlists for eleven languages : Arawe ( Pililo ) , Bola ( Bakovi ) , Kapore , Kilenge , Lakalai (Nakanai ) , Mamusi , Mengen, Tolai ( Blanche Bay , Gunantuna , Tinata Tuna ) , Tumuip , Uvol , and Wasi ( Peleata ) . Of these , the lists for Kapore , Kilenge , and Peleata were too short to be used in the main classificat ion . Bola and Nakanai are put together to form the Willaumez Linkage , with the possibility that Kapore also belongs there , while Mamusi , Mengen , and Uvol are assigned to the Uvolic Cluster of the Austronesian Linkage . The other New Britain languages , though also as­signed to the Austronesian Linkage , remain isolates ; Dyen notes that of those which he assumes ( erroneously ) to be located in "Southwest New Britain" , Arawe , Kilenge , Tumuip , and Wasi "are apparent ly no more closely related with members of ( the Willaumez Linkage ) than with each other and other members of the Austronesian Linkage" ( Dyen 19 65 : 62 ) . Dyen was so impressed by the diversity that he suggested ( p . 5 4 ) that it might result from the fact that New Britain was one of the two "pos sib le areas of origin of the Malayopolynesians " . This suggestion , as regards New Britain , has not been retained in Dyen ' s most recent writ ings on the sub ject , and it is probab ly safe to assume that he no longer regards New Britain as a maj or centre of dispersal for Austronesian languages . As regards the amount of diversity , however , it is probab ly somewhat greater than he realised . The Kapore-speakers are bilingual in Lakalai , and have taken over a number of words from Lakalai , complete with foss ilis ed af­fixes ; the lists in Goodenough 1961a demonstrate that the languages are fundamentally unlike . I have noted above that Peleata is probab ly non­Austronesian , again with a decept ive number of loans , but since Dyen had no wordlists from the group which Chowning calls Lamogai ( see below 4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 9 . ) , he could only note seven of the eight divisions postulated there .

4 . 2 . 9 . HISTORY AUSTRONESIAN RESEARCH : NEW BRITAIN 19 1

4 . 2 . 9 . 4 . 9 . Chowning ' s 1969 classification made much use of lexico­statistics , and the agreement with Dyen is hardly surprising when it is realized that in a number of cases , we were using the same wordlists ( col­lected by Goodenough and Grace ) . In addition , however , this classifica­tion made use of grammatical data where it was availab le . Though it was minimal for the groups labelled Arawe , Lamogai , and Tumuip , it was abun­dant for Tolai and , as a by-product of lengthy anthropological fieldwork in three di fferent parts of New Britain , for languages in the Bariai , Kimb e , and Whit eman groups . In addition , all available wordlist s , both published and unpublished , were consulted . The result was the postula­tion of eight separate " families" : Arawe ( containing Dyen ' s Pililo ) ; Bariai ( containing his Ki lenge ) ; Blanche Bay ( his Gunantuna , otherwise Tolai ) ; Kimbe ( essentially his Willaumez Linkage ) ; Lamogai ; Mengen ( his Uvolic Cluster ) ; Tomoip ; and Whiteman ( containing Kapore ) . Subsequent ly Chowning has followed Beaumont ( 19 7 2 ) in assigning her "Blanche Bay" to his larger Patpatar-Tolai subgroup , and has also assigned Bariai to Hooley ' s 1970 Siasi Family , but the actual number of diverse groups re­mains intact .

4 . 2 . 9 . 5 . U N P UB L I S H E D MAT E R I AL S

4 . 2 . 9 . 5 . 1 . New Britain remains an area on which comparat ively litt le has been pub lished . Since 195 4 , however , a great deal of anthropological work has been done outside the Tolai-speaking region , and the Summer Institut e of Linguistics has become increasingly active since the early 1960s .

Many of these investigat ors have been concerned with collecting word­list s and mapping the distribut ion of languages , and much material exists in manuscript form to supplement that collected by Grace . To the list of collectors ment ioned in Chowning ( 19 69 : 39 ) may be added the names of M. and P. Dark, M . and R . Johnston , and of course Capel l . In time , some of these investigators should pub lish on various topics connected with New Britain linguist ic s ; the Summer Institute of Linguistics members are already beginning to do so , but I lack the references .

A. CHOWNING

B I B L I OGRAPHY

ALLEN , J . and C. HURD

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L�ng u�g ec . r U PAL 19 . r JA L Memoir 19 .

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The Willaumez Languages of New Britain . Paper read at the 10th Pacific Science Congress , Honolulu , Hawaii . Mimeo­graphed.

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Au� t�one��an ( Malayo- Polyne� �an ) Language Family . 1 U PA L 16 , supplement to 1 JAL 2 5 .

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HOOLEY , B . A .

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1 9 6 0 A Vietion�y 06 the Raluana Languag e . Victoria , B . C . : the Author .

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8 : 115-24 .

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MILKE , W .

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Chowning, A. "History of Research in Austronesian Languages: New Britain". In Wurm, S.A. editor, New Guinea area languages and language study, Vol. 2, Austronesian languages. C-39:179-196. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1976. DOI:10.15144/PL-C39.179 ©1976 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative.