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Robert K. Colwell

Museum Curator Adjoint in Entomology


Curriculum vitae


robertkcolwell [at] gmail.com


Museum of Natural History

University of Colorado

Boulder, CO 80309, USA




robertkcolwell [at] gmail.com


Museum of Natural History

University of Colorado

Boulder, CO 80309, USA



Language and ethnobiological skills decline precipitously in Papua New Guinea, the world’s most linguistically diverse nation


Journal article


A. Kik, M. Adamec, A. Aikhenvald, Jarmila Bajzekova, Nigel Baro, Claire Bowern, R. K. Colwell, P. Drozd, P. Duda, Sentiko Ibalim, L. Jorge, J. Mogina, Ben Ruli, K. Sam, Hannah S. Sarvasy, S. Saulei, G. Weiblen, J. Zrzavý, V. Novotný
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021

Semantic Scholar DOI PubMedCentral PubMed
Cite

Cite

APA   Click to copy
Kik, A., Adamec, M., Aikhenvald, A., Bajzekova, J., Baro, N., Bowern, C., … Novotný, V. (2021). Language and ethnobiological skills decline precipitously in Papua New Guinea, the world’s most linguistically diverse nation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Kik, A., M. Adamec, A. Aikhenvald, Jarmila Bajzekova, Nigel Baro, Claire Bowern, R. K. Colwell, et al. “Language and Ethnobiological Skills Decline Precipitously in Papua New Guinea, the World’s Most Linguistically Diverse Nation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021).


MLA   Click to copy
Kik, A., et al. “Language and Ethnobiological Skills Decline Precipitously in Papua New Guinea, the World’s Most Linguistically Diverse Nation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021.


BibTeX   Click to copy

@article{a2021a,
  title = {Language and ethnobiological skills decline precipitously in Papua New Guinea, the world’s most linguistically diverse nation},
  year = {2021},
  journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
  author = {Kik, A. and Adamec, M. and Aikhenvald, A. and Bajzekova, Jarmila and Baro, Nigel and Bowern, Claire and Colwell, R. K. and Drozd, P. and Duda, P. and Ibalim, Sentiko and Jorge, L. and Mogina, J. and Ruli, Ben and Sam, K. and Sarvasy, Hannah S. and Saulei, S. and Weiblen, G. and Zrzavý, J. and Novotný, V.}
}

Abstract

Significance Around the world, more than 7,000 languages are spoken, most of them by small populations of speakers in the tropics. Globalization puts small languages at a disadvantage, but our understanding of the drivers and rate of language loss remains incomplete. When we tested key factors causing language attrition among Papua New Guinean students speaking 392 different indigenous languages, we found an unexpectedly rapid decline in their language skills compared to their parents and predicted further acceleration of language loss in the next generation. Language attrition was accompanied by decline in the traditional knowledge of nature among the students, pointing to an uncertain future for languages and biocultural knowledge in the most linguistically diverse place on Earth. Papua New Guinea is home to >10% of the world’s languages and rich and varied biocultural knowledge, but the future of this diversity remains unclear. We measured language skills of 6,190 students speaking 392 languages (5.5% of the global total) and modeled their future trends using individual-level variables characterizing family language use, socioeconomic conditions, students’ skills, and language traits. This approach showed that only 58% of the students, compared to 91% of their parents, were fluent in indigenous languages, while the trends in key drivers of language skills (language use at home, proportion of mixed-language families, urbanization, students’ traditional skills) predicted accelerating decline of fluency to an estimated 26% in the next generation of students. Ethnobiological knowledge declined in close parallel with language skills. Varied medicinal plant uses known to the students speaking indigenous languages are replaced by a few, mostly nonnative species for the students speaking English or Tok Pisin, the national lingua franca. Most (88%) students want to teach indigenous language to their children. While crucial for keeping languages alive, this intention faces powerful external pressures as key factors (education, cash economy, road networks, and urbanization) associated with language attrition are valued in contemporary society.


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