Eastern Melanesia Language Hotspot

Eastern Melanesia ranks among the most linguistically diverse areas in the world, both in terms of total number of languages, and the various families they represent. Stretching across Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia to Vanuatu, the vast majority of these languages are spoken by small and/or dwindling populations. To date, the work of Living Tongues Institute has focused on Papua New Guinea within the Eastern Melanesia Language Hotspot.

Languages of Madang Province, Papua New Guinea

While Papua New Guinea 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 (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. 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. The main village is Matukar (Matugar) but they call their language Panau, which literally means 'give it to me' in their language.

 Panau Language Sample Audio Files

 Matukar Words

 'give me'

 '(my) head' ŋ

'(my) eye'

   'finger'

(my) leg'

 '(my) skin'

'(my?) bone'

'(my) knee'

'mother'

'daughter'

 'man'

'elder brother'

'elder sister'

 'younger sister'

'pig'

'dog'

'snake'

'crocodile'

 'flying fox'

 'black'

 'stars'

'water'

'coconut'

'coconut hair'

 'leaf'

'house post'

'roof (of house)'

 'bow'

 'arrow'

 'yes'

 'paddle'

 'fishspear'

'axe'

'tomorrow'
rabojip

'yesterday'
noRnen

'five'

numa-w=kukuɲ=tahajk

 'ten'

 'eleven'

'fifteen'

Please consider participating in our Adopt-a-Language program
to help us continue our work with endangered languages.

This button allows you to donate specifically for the Matukar Panau Languages