Discovering Mafea: texts, grammar and lexicon
  
      The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual collections with transcription and translations of endangered languages and practices. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR).
            This project proposes to record and describe Mafea, an Austronesian language spoken by about 200 people on Mafea island, northern Vanuatu. To date, the only publication about the language is a 300-word list collected by Jacques Guy and published in Tryon 1976. Two objectives guide this research: (i) to produce linguistic documentation for the Mafea language, in the form of a descriptive grammar, a lexicon, and a collection of digitized (and subsequently glossed) texts; and (ii) to convert digital documentation into literacy material (such as story books), in order to assist Mafea-speaking children and adults in developing L1 literacy skills
Primary investigator: Valerie Guerin
          
                      
                  Project Details
            Location:              Vanuatu,               Melanesia,               Oceania
            Organiser(s):
              Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
                          Project partner(s): University of Hawai'I at Manoa
            
            Funder(s):
              Arcadia
                          Funding received: £12,292.00
            
                          Commencement Date: 01/2001
            
                          Project Status: Completed
                      
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