Documentation of Moor, an Austronesian language of Cenderawasih Bay, Indonesia
The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create multimedia collection of endangered languages. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) housed at the library of SOAS University of London.
Moor (ISO-639 mhz) is a virtually undescribed Austronesian language spoken by about 1000 people in southeast Cenderawasih Bay. It is under heavy influence from Indonesian and the youngest generation no longer speaks the language, so it is quite endangered. Moor is unique among Cenderawasih Bay languages in possessing lexical tone. This project aims to document most aspects of Moor. Products will include a corpus of traditional stories, oral histories, and conversation; a trilingual dictionary, including vocabulary for flora, fauna, and cultural items; a sketch grammar; and a description of the tonal system.
Primary investigator: David Kamholz
Project Details
Location: Indonesia, South-Eastern Asia, Asia
Organiser(s):
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Project partner(s): University of California, Berkeley
Funder(s):
Arcadia
Funding received: £26,364.00
Commencement Date: 01/2006
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