Languages on Papua vanish without a whisper | Entertainment | DAWN.COM:
"New Guinea is home to more than 1,000 languages — around 800 in Papua New Guinea and 200 in Indonesian Papua — but most have fewer than 1,000 speakers, often centred around a village or cluster of hamlets.
Some 80 per cent of New Guinea’s people live in rural areas and many tribes, especially in the isolated mountains, have little contact with one another, let alone with the outside world.
The most widely-spoken language is Enga, with around 200,000 speakers in the highlands of central PNG, followed by Melpa and Huli.
“Every time someone dies, a little part of the language dies too because only the oldest people still use it,” said Nico, the curator of Cendrawasih University’s museum.
“In towns but also eventually in the forest, Indonesian has become the main language for people under 40"
from http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/21/languages-on-papua-vanish-without-a-whisper.html
"New Guinea is home to more than 1,000 languages — around 800 in Papua New Guinea and 200 in Indonesian Papua — but most have fewer than 1,000 speakers, often centred around a village or cluster of hamlets.
Some 80 per cent of New Guinea’s people live in rural areas and many tribes, especially in the isolated mountains, have little contact with one another, let alone with the outside world.
The most widely-spoken language is Enga, with around 200,000 speakers in the highlands of central PNG, followed by Melpa and Huli.
“Every time someone dies, a little part of the language dies too because only the oldest people still use it,” said Nico, the curator of Cendrawasih University’s museum.
“In towns but also eventually in the forest, Indonesian has become the main language for people under 40"
from http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/21/languages-on-papua-vanish-without-a-whisper.html
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