Languages of the Eastern
Bird's Head
Reesink, Ger (editor)
PL 524
This book is the first detailed
introduction to languages of the Bird's Head peninsula of
Indonesia's Irian Jaya (Papua) province. Detailed data on
these languages have only become available in the last decade,
and the papers in this volume present some of the results
of this new research. The first article sketches out the relationships
between the eastern Bird's Head languages - both with each
other and with other languages in the surrounding area. Following
the introduction are short descriptions of three languages,
Mpur (by Cecilia Odé), Meyah (by Gilles Gravelle), Sougb and
Mansim (both by Ger Reesink). Each of these contributions
is presented as an independent unit, with illustrative text
material. The article on Mansim is of particular importance.
Until Reesink's fieldwork in the region, Mansim was thought
to be extinct. While the language has few speakers left, it
is not quite extinct: Ger Reesink was fortunate enough to
collect some materials from a few of the last remaining speakers.
Mansim is closely related to Hatam, a language already described
in an earlier Pacific Linguistics volume by Reesink.
2002 ISBN 0 85883 494 4
ix + 340 pp
Prices: Australia AUD$84.70
(incl. GST) Overseas AUD$77.00
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