TY - CHAP
T1 - Is it worth documenting "just a dialect"? Making the case for Suru Kavian (Pentecost Island)
AU - Schneider, Cindy
AU - Gray, Andrew
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Apma, with approximately 8,000 speakers, has three main dialects: Suru Mwerani (SM), Suru Rabwanga (SR), and Suru Kavian (SK). Despite high cognancy rates between SM, SR, and SK, preliminary fieldwork has revealed phonotactic, lexical, and morpho-syntactic differences between SK on the one hand, and SM/SR on the other. SK speakers view their variety as unique, and have expressed a desire to maintain and develop it as distinct from other Apma varieties. This paper explores the unique linguistic features of SK, describes preliminary social and language development questions that have arisen at the outset of the dialect documentation process, reviews how others have incorporated language variation into their grammars, and argues that dialect documentation is worthwhile and important for not only the community of speakers, but also for increasing our understanding of areal language ecology.
AB - Apma, with approximately 8,000 speakers, has three main dialects: Suru Mwerani (SM), Suru Rabwanga (SR), and Suru Kavian (SK). Despite high cognancy rates between SM, SR, and SK, preliminary fieldwork has revealed phonotactic, lexical, and morpho-syntactic differences between SK on the one hand, and SM/SR on the other. SK speakers view their variety as unique, and have expressed a desire to maintain and develop it as distinct from other Apma varieties. This paper explores the unique linguistic features of SK, describes preliminary social and language development questions that have arisen at the outset of the dialect documentation process, reviews how others have incorporated language variation into their grammars, and argues that dialect documentation is worthwhile and important for not only the community of speakers, but also for increasing our understanding of areal language ecology.
KW - Language in Culture and Society (Sociolinguistics)
KW - Language in Time and Space (incl. Historical Linguistics, Dialectology)
UR - http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/213587821
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/1885/14819
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781922185235
T3 - Asia-Pacific Linguistics Open Access Monographs / Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia
SP - 197
EP - 216
BT - The Languages of Vanuatu: Unity and Diversity
A2 - Francois, Alexandre
A2 - Lacrampe, Sebastien
A2 - Franjieh, Michael
A2 - Schnell, Stefan
PB - Asia-Pacific Linguistics
CY - Canberra, Australia
ER -