TY - JOUR
T1 - Language and ethnobiological skills decline precipitously in Papua New Guinea, the world's most linguistically diverse nation
AU - Kik, Alfred
AU - Adamec, Martin
AU - Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
AU - Bajzekova, Jarmila
AU - Baro, Nigel
AU - Bowern, Claire
AU - Colwell, Robert K.
AU - Drozd, Pavel
AU - Duda, Pavel
AU - Ibalim, Sentiko
AU - Jorge, Leonardo R.
AU - Mogina, Jane
AU - Ruli, Ben
AU - Sam, Katerina
AU - Sarvasy, Hannah
AU - Saulei, Simon
AU - Weiblen, George D.
AU - Zrzavy, Jan
AU - Novotny, Vojtech
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/6/1
Y1 - 2021/6/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Biocultural diversity
KW - Ethnobiology
KW - Language attrition
KW - Language endangerment
KW - Papua New Guinea
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2100096118
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2100096118
M3 - Article
C2 - 34039709
AN - SCOPUS:85106906723
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 118
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 22
M1 - e2100096118
ER -