Kategoria BISAC: Foreign Language Study >> Oceanic & Australian Languages

Among Marshallese the ri-bwebwenato (storyteller) is well known and respected, a living repository and transmitter of traditional history and culture. Here are ninety folktales and stories of historical events, collected and translated into English during the third quarter of the twentieth century. They include tales of origins, humanlike animals, ogres, and sprites--some malevolent, some playful. Many are presented in the original language and are amplified by extensive commentary.

Anatomia is the only medical textbook written in the Hawaiian language. Gerrit P. Judd, for a time the only medical missionary in the Islands, wrote the text in 1838 to teach basic anatomy to Hawaiians enrolled at the Mission Seminary (Lahainaluna School). Working from a standard elementary textbook of the time, Judd provided his students with more than a simple, straight translation. Rather than Hawaiianize Latin or English names and terms, he devised new vocabulary and explained medical functions and practices in words that would be readily understood by a Hawaiian.

Judd's use of...

How would you respond if a New Zealander invited you to a -leg-in-? Would you know what to do if someone told you to pull up a -browser-? Without some assistance, most foreigners would indeed be baffled by the intricacies of the Kiwi tongue. Now, however, help is available as Louis S. Leland Jr., a professor of psychology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, unravels the mysteries of this colorful language. Composed in equal parts of fact and hilarity, this specialized dictionary will aid the traveler, amuse the linguist, and delight even the casual observer. This book is a...

'O si Manu a Ali'i is the first comprehensive guide for teachers of Samoan oratory and the Samoan language of respect. It is also an authoritative resource book for students of the language. The author's insightful descriptions of Samoan culture provide the necessary social contexts for learning these important speech registers.

Text in Samoan

Mah Meri is an Aslian (Austroasiatic: Mon-Khmer) language spoken in scattered settlements along a section of the southwest coast of Selangor in Peninsular Malaysia. The Mah Meri are the only Aslian speakers who live in a coastal environment. Their language, which may have about 2,000 speakers, has no written language and is highly endangered.

This is the first comprehensive dictionary of Mah Meri and is based on the author's extensive field research and consultation with members of the community over the last ten years. The dialect presented here is spoken by about 600 people at...

This is the most useful and comprehensive English-Tahitian, Tahitian-English dictionary available. The author, who was a devoted student of Tahitian for more than three decades, provides an extensive introduction to the language with detailed notes on grammar, usage, and pronunciation.

This reprint edition has been re-sized to 6 inches x 9.25 inches, making it a convenient and handier alternative to larger-sized dictionaries.

There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes available valuable data compiled by Po Minis and the New Britain missionary P. Josef Meier for the Titan language. Meier published seventy-five texts in Titan (the corpus is about 25,000 words) in the journal Anthropos between 1906 and 1909 and an addendum in 1912. Stories contain brief information about the speakers and are glossed word-for-word in German and occasionally Latin.

Sivisa Titan is divided into three sections. The first is a sketch grammar based entirely on the texts collected by...

The Languages and Linguistics of Australia: A Comprehensive Guide is part of the multi-volume reference work on the languages and linguistics of the continents of the world. The volume provides a thorough overview of Australian languages, including their linguistic structures, their genetic relationships, and issues of language maintenance and revitalisation.

Australian English, Aboriginal English and other contact varieties are also discussed.

Spoken on Mavea Island by approximately 32 people, Mavea is an endangered Oceanic language of Vanuatu. This work provides grammatical descriptions of this hitherto undescribed language. Fourteen chapters, containing more than 1,400 examples, cover topics in the phonology and morphosyntax of Mavea, with an emphasis on the latter. Of particular interest are examples of individual speaker variation presented throughout the grammar; the presence of three linguo-labials (still used today by a single speaker) that were unexpectedly found before the rounded vowel /o/; and a chapter on numerals...