KALA KAŊA BIŊA KAPIA DIKSINERI BILONG TOK PLES KALA
(Kala Language Dictionary)
Authors:
Chara DeVolder
Christine Schreyer
John Wagner
Date:
2012
ISBN: 978-0-9865387-7-3
Abstract:
This book is a Kala language dictionary. The language of Kala is spoken in six villages located along the shoreline of the Huon Gulf in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Within these six villages, there are four distinct dialects of Kala. In 2006, due to concern about language shift in their communities, Kala speaking community members developed the Kala Language Committee. This committee consists of three individuals from each of the six Kala speaking villages and their goals are to raise awareness about Kala language shift and to develop more Kala usage in their communities, specifically within Kala language elementary schools. The main activities in this research project have been a phonological analysis and the development of a Kala alphabet, known as the Kala Biŋatuwã, as well as developing more Kala books including the first Kala dictionary.
-
Chara DeVolder is helping preserve an Indigenous language by putting it into written form for the first time.
Christine Schreyer I am an associate professor of anthropology at UBC Okanagan, where I teach courses in linguistic anthropology. My research focuses on language revitalization in Canada, and, more recently in Papua New Guinea, as well as the relationship between endangered language communities and created language communities. I have done research on the Na’vi speech community (from the movie Avatar) and am the creator of the Kryptonian language from Man of Steel (2013), the Eltarian language from Power Rangers (2017), and the Beama (also known as Cro-Magnon) language from Alpha (2018).
John Wagner is an environmental anthropologist situated on the UBC Okanagan campus. I have been studying water governance issues in the Okanagan Valley and the Columbia River Basin since 2004, focusing especially on the role of agriculture in water governance systems. I am currently working with other UBC Okanagan researchers, multi-media artists and community partners on the Water Ways project, a study of water in the Okanagan Valley that will culminate in a museum exhibition in 2021. I also conduct research in Papua New Guinea and am currently collaborating with other researchers and the Kala Language Committee on a language documentation project focused on Kala knowledge of their aquatic environment. I have edited two volumes on water issues, The Social Life of Water (2013), which provides global coverage of selected water issues from a political ecology perspective, and most recently, Island Rivers (2019), which is focused on the cultural meaning of freshwater for diverse Pacific Island communities.
-
Use these keywords to search below for related publications with ICER Press.
Kala, language, fluency, dictionary, learning