Bonkiman
Classification: Trans-New Guinea
·endangered
This project documents the dialects and languages spoken in a portion of the Yupna region, an area of extreme linguistic diversity within one of the most linguistically diverse countries on earth, Papua New Guinea. Although multilingualism has been an everyday fact of life in these communities, state schooling is drastically reducing local linguistic diversity. Through linguistic elicitation, interviews, and recording of interactional events, the project captures a cross-section of the variation found in a set of neighboring villages where four related languages are spoken: Bonkiman (150 speakers), Yuwong (100 speakers), Domung (2,000 speakers), and Yopno (8,000 speakers).