Re: [Langcom] New Guinea languages (WAS: Membership changes)

In response to the question of New Guinea languages: SIL is probably the one organisation [1] working in most of those languages, almost half of all in PNG alone, which includes over 2,500 publications and a large body of unpublished works about and in 389 languages [2]. Access to amenities including the internet is spreading fast [3], and mobile penetration is at 50% [4]. So, I am actually rather optimistic, not least as I'm aware of minority language activities in PNG being vital and continuing to go strong. Whether that means we need an additional New Guinea language expert, or whether it will be sufficient to rely on my SIL contacts (which do include PNG), that's another question which I refrain from answering here now as I may be perceived as biased on that issue. But Jon Harald asked for correction if necessary, and I at least felt the need to balance his outlook. I very much support the promotion of Internet-based movements in PNG, and I believe it makes a lot of sense. [1] http://www.silpng.org/ [2] http://www-01.sil.org/pacific/png/show_lang.asp?by=langcode [3] http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/news/papua-new-guinea%E2%80%99s- internet-gaining-speed [4] https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Papua-New-Guinea- Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses On 10-Feb-17 01:28, Jon Harald Søby wrote: [...] This might be nitpicking, but I don't necessarily agree that we should be looking for New Guinea language specialists. Yes, I'm aware that there are 1500 languages (¼ of the world's languages by some estimates) spoken in New Guinea, but I don't think it makes sense for us to be giving too much weight to that at this point. The vast majority of these languages are spoken by small tribes who live in the middle of the forest, often lack access to basic amenities, let alone the Internet, and whose languages have never been written before. (I'm generalizing broadly now, and am no expert in Papuan languages, so please correct me if I'm mistaken!) This is not to say I wouldn't welcome any Papuan language specialists, I just think it doesn't make sense to make that a priority for an Internet-based movement like ours. But anyways, this is not very related to the point of this thread. _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom