Directions

Planning in a Multi-lingual Country: The Case of Papua New Guinea

PLANNING IN A MULTI-LINGUAL COUNTRY: THE CASE OF PAPUA NEW
GUINEA:
Sakarepe Kamene, Willie Juduo and Lucy Nakin
Introduction
Papua New Guinea (PNG) consists of the eastern half of the island of
New Guinea, in the Southwestern Pacific, and several islands or island
groups, such as New Britain, New Ireland and Bougainville.

PNG became independent in 1975, and its capital is Port Moresby. In
July 2005, its population was estimated at 5,670544,9 mostly
Melanesians and Papuans. The literacy rate is a little under 65%, with a
ratio of 91 literate women for every 100 men.

Over 800 indigenous languages are spoken in PNG, as well as the lingua
francas Tok Pisin and, in Papua, Hiri Motu. In 2001, there were 98,848
students attending 1,416 elementary schools, 296,281 in 1,639 primary
schools, 77,451 in 161 secondary schools, and 14,333 in 138 vocational
schools. There were about 1,400 teachers (elementary: 3,449; primary:
7,858; secondary: 2,187; vocational: 908).

Papua New Guinea does not have any explicit statement or guideline in
the National Constitution on language policy. Instead there are some
random and covert statements on this subject in different documents.
The National Constitution makes an inference about using certain
languages to achieve universal literacy in the country. It says: “all
persons and governmental bodies [to] endeavour to achieve universal
literacy in Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, tokples or ita eda gado” (National
Constitution, p.4). Nekitel (1984), meanwhile, notes that Papua New
Guinea indirectly promotes what he calls “silent trilingual language
policy”. Also, Dutton (1976) claims that Papua New Guinea has an
“assumed” language policy, which tends to give the impression that

9 https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ne.html CIA The World
Factbook


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Directions: Journal of Educational Studies 27 (1)

English is the national language, when in fact it is not. Behind this
assumption is a strong belief that English somehow would foster unity in
the country. The sentiment is echoed in the National Policy on
Information and Communication of Papua New Guinea (NPIT 1994).
This policy also encourages and respects rights of community-based
language choice for information and communication. A similar but more
comprehensive report on a community-based language choice and
education is contained in the ministerial committee report A Philosophy
of Education for Papua
headed by Sir Paulias Matane. In the report it is
strongly recommended that vernacular languages be used at the
elementary and lower levels of the education system in Papua New
Guinea. This is one of the core reports that brought about change and
reform in our national education system.

The National Government has realised the importance of a national
language policy, and has tasked the National Education Department with
formulating a proposal for a national language policy framework for
further discussion, debate and consultation with various stakeholders
concerned with language development. This proposed national language
policy framework is in its infancy but, as we can begin to see, the
Government is shifting its paradigm from emphasising economic
development, which appears to have little impact on the bulk of the
population, and focusing instead on promoting social issues in the
country.

The preceding comments all indicate the implicit nature of language
policy in Papua New Guinea. For a country like Papua New Guinea,
with complex cultures and a multitude of languages, this could allow
greater freedom to develop a suitable language policy that caters for and
respects the rights of the speakers of various languages. There are signs
that point to this trend in Papua New Guinea.

PNG is the biggest and also the largest island nation in the Pacific. It has
over 5,000 village communitie s and a landmass of 465,000 square
kilometres. This consists of the 85% landmass of the eastern half of
New Guinea with another 15% coming from 700 offshore islands, which


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Planning in a Multi-lingual Country: The Case of Papua New Guinea

are spread over an expanse of three million square kilometres of ocean
(Ranasinghe 2002). This poses great difficulty because it limits easy
access, interaction and mobility within the country. Added to this is the
geo-physical and topographic tyranny of the terrain, which combines
spectacular scenery with some of the most inhospitable geo-physical
conditions. Conditions involve frequent volcanic threats, tidal waves,
landslides, large rivers, swamps, high mountains, steep gorges and
ravines that severely hinder progress. Also, the cost involved in trying to
get things done under these conditions must be borne in mind when
dealing, in our case, with the language policy in education.
Population

Forty per cent of the population is below the age of 15. This represents
about two million people. They are mostly unemployed and vulnerable
to all sorts of abuse, particularly the girls. This age group also poses a
potentially dangerous socio-political problem in the country. It is a real
challenge, which requires immediate attention. Having realised this
challenge, the government has now in place a national population policy
(2000-2010) to address the issue.

The coastal areas are sparsely populated compared to the high density in
most highland areas (sometimes as high as 55 persons per square
kilometre, as in Chimbu). But on average, density is around 11 persons
per square kilometre. This poses even greater problems and serious
challenges for educators and educational planners. Tables 1 and 2 give
more information about the languages and population of PNG.
Literacy in Papua New Guinea

Compared with other Pacific Island states which enjoy high rates of
literacy, Papua New Guinea seems to be plodding along slowly but
steadily. The government understands the challenge, and has developed
a national literacy policy. There is also a provincial literacy policy for
all nine provinces. The 2000 census shows the overall literacy rate as
56%. This is an increase of 10% since the last census in 1990. The


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Directions: Journal of Educational Studies 27 (1)

literacy rate is higher in urban areas than in rural areas, and higher
among men than among women. (See Table 2.) Slow rates of increase
could be due to a number of variables, one being the multiplicity of
languages involved compared to the monolingual situation in many other
Pacific countries.

Table 1: Languages of Papua New Guinea: some basic statistics


Number
Population
Existing
Existing
Literacy
Other
of
orthography
vernacular
materials
literature
languages
education
projects

Total
837
5,545,268*
362
170
269
249
for
including
languages
languages
languages
languages
PNG
20 extinct
% of languages
44%
20%
33%
30%
% of population (including
88%
56%
74%
78%
English, Tokpisin and Hiri Motu)
% of population (excluding
87%
53%
72%
77%
English, Tokpisin and Hiri Motu)
* https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ne.html CIA Fact book

The ethno-linguistic situation in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is home to over 854 distinct vernacular languages,
along with innumerable dialects, which are spoken by 5,190.786 people
(National Census 2000) within the mainland and on the island (Nekitel
1998). This represents something like 14% of the world’s 6,528
languages (Grimes 1992; Nekitel 1996; Kamene 1996).

The languages in Papua New Guinea fall into two major groups: the
Austronesian and the non-Austronesian languages (NAN), sometimes
referred to as Papuan. Austronesian languages constitute the biggest
language family in the world, with over 800 languages spreading from
Southeast Asia to Easter Island, New Zealand and Madagascar. They


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Planning in a Multi-lingual Country: The Case of Papua New Guinea

show strong evidence of lexical, phonological and structural similarities,
which suggest they may have a common origin or ancestor.

Table 2: Literacy rate (%) of citizen population aged 10 years and over by
language, gender (M~males, F~females) and sector



Total
Urban
Rural
Literacy
Total
M
F
Total
M
F
Tota
M
F
l
Total
56.2
61.2
50.9
86.2
88.6
83.3
51.7
56.8
46.3
Literate









in
40.4
45.4
35.0
74.6
78.3
70.2
35.2
40.1
30.0
English
Literate









in
45.2
51.0
38.9
76.6
80.5
72.0
40.4
46.3
34.2
Pidgin
Literate
5.0
6.0
4.0
17.0
18.2
15.7
3.2
4.6
24
in Motu
Literate









in
41.7
45.4
37.7
62.5
65.2
59.4
38.5
42.3
34.6
Tokples
Source: PNG, 2000 National Census

In Papua New Guinea most Austronesian-speaking communities are
located in the island areas and a few in pockets of the mainland. Most
are found in East and West New Britain, New Ireland, some parts of
Bougainville, New Hanover, Mussau, the Admiralty Islands, Manam
Island, Umboi Island, Trobriand Island, Woodlark Island, Goodenough,
Fergusson, Normanby, Misima, and Sudest Islands. There are a few
located in pockets of the mainland, mostly on the coastal fringes.

The NAN language family is the largest linguistic group in the country.
It comprises more than 854 distinct local languages. They are unrelated
but are grouped for linguistic convenience. They form eight major phyla
or groups and many different families. Like other Melanesian
countries, Papua New Guinea has been described as one of the most
linguistically diverse and culturally complex countries in the world. In


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Directions: Journal of Educational Studies 27 (1)

the interior of the country (the highlands) we have a small number of
languages with a large number of speakers whilst in the coastal areas we
find many languages which are quite small in terms of the number of
speakers. Most of these are found in the MOMASE (Morobe, Madang
and Sepik) region. The ‘largest’ language in the country is Engan (in the
highlands) with 200,000 speakers, while the ‘smallest’ language is
Laua/Labu (Central) with only one speaker. The national average of any
one language would be around 2,000 speakers. This sort of linguistic
situation raises some linguistic, cultural and communication issues.

Another pressing issue involves our knowledge of the exact status of
different languages in the country. We have some valuable linguistic
data. We know, for example, that seven languages have already become
extinct (Nekitel 1998). Kamene (1999) reported that Yarawi is dead.
There are also numerous cases of moribund languages in the country.
This is a worrying situation. We also know of about eight languages that
have five or fewer speakers. We have four languages with ten or fewer
speakers. When considering the total number of languages, (854) half
that number have a thousand or fewer speakers. This sounds like a
linguistically crazy country but this is not at all the case. There are some
general linguistic maps that show that the situation is not as messy as it
sounds. It becomes clearer when we look at what we have and use at
national, regional, and community levels.

Generally, it is evident that many smaller languages are becoming
increasingly threatened by some major metropolitan and international
languages. In PNG, English appears to exert great pressure on local
vernacular languages. But we also see pressure from one of our own
lingua francas—Tokpisin. It is the language of wider currency and use
among the middle and lower socio-economic strata and is fast becoming
the first language of many Papua New Guinea children. We know that
about 10,000 – 12,000 children speak it as their mother tongue.

There are also what we call ‘church lingua francas’. These are local
languages chosen, promoted and used by various church denominations
in the country, basically for evangelism. Some examples are: Kate and


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Planning in a Multi-lingual Country: The Case of Papua New Guinea

Jabem (Morobe), Kuanua (New Guinea Islands), Dobu and Suau (Milne
Bay), Kuman (Chimbu), Toaripi (Gulf), Motu and Sinagoro (Central).
They too exert enormous pressure on other local languages at the
community level.

There are some regional languages which also constitute a danger for
smaller local languages at the regional level. These are languages like
Engan and Kuman in the Highlands, Kuanua in the New Guinea Islands,
Motu in the Central Province and Kate in Morobe Province. Many are
church lingua francas, and many are written but their roles and functions
extend well beyond the church domain, thereby affecting other areas of
community life.
Languages of Papua New Guinea – their roles and functions
English

Papua New Guinea has English as an official language. Introduced as an
official language, it occupies a privileged position in the country.
However, it is spoken with varying degrees of proficiency, from near-
native competence to a mere smattering (Nekitel 1998). It is purportedly
used in major public domains, such as government, law and justice,
education, the media, business, commerce and the like. And, according
to the 2000 national census, about 40% of the population claim that they
can read and write in English. But the same census also shows that the
literacy rate in rural areas, where the bulk of the people (80%) live, is
quite low, suggesting that English is not widely used. This implies that
education in rural areas may be conducted in a la nguage or languages
other than English.
Tokpisin and Hiri Motu

Tokpisin and Hiri Motu are our two national lingua francas. Tokpisin is
a pidgin language with English, German and Kuanua as its main sources.
While English contributes about 80% of the lexical items, grammatical
structures come from these three as well as other local vernacular
languages. Both Tokpisin and Hiri Motu developed around the middle


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Directions: Journal of Educational Studies 27 (1)

of the nineteenth century as a result of external contact and subsequent
entrepreneurial activitie s and administrative control over indigenous
populations of diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Tokpisin is a
language of wider currency in the country, commonly used for
entrepreneurial activities, for inter-ethnic communication and in contact
situations involving people with no common language, such as in
plantations and large forestry, mining and fisheries projects.

A weekly Wantok newspaper is published in Tokpisin. Most church
denominations use Tokpisin to spread the gospel and most government
materials are written in it. There are also guide materials for visitors. It
is a widely researched language, and has a grammar, a dictionary and
much socio-cultural information. It seems over two million people use
Tokpisin for national, provincial, community and daily affairs.

Tokpisin is also widely used in elementary schools in areas with children
of mixed ethnic backgrounds. Many urban training programmes in
settlements are also basically conducted in Tokpisin. Most of the 19
provincial radio stations broadcast in Tokpisin.

Tokpisin is the most dynamic language used for major developments and
disseminating vital government information to the community. Though it
is widely used, it does not enjoy the status it deserves.
Hiri Motu

Hiri Motu is local pidgin language derived from the Motu language of
the Central Province in the Southern region, known as Papua during
colonial times. It was during these times that a simplified Motu became
the unofficial language for administration. It became associated with
police and prison administration, thereby acquiring its name of Police
Motu. But, as Dutton (1995) points out, simplified Motu existed long
before the advent of colonial administration in Papua. This simplified
Motu was the language used by local people with different linguistic
backgrounds when they came in contact with one another, such as on a
long trading voyage like the Hiri trading expeditions along the Gulf of


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Planning in a Multi-lingual Country: The Case of Papua New Guinea

Papua. This, together with colonial contact, gave rise to what is now
known as Hiri Motu. With the rapidly spreading Tokpisin taking over
areas where traditionally Hiri Motu was spoken, there is a real danger
that Hiri Motu could gradually decline, which would be unfortunate.

It is estimated that over 250,000 people speak Hiri Motu. Like Tokpisin,
it has written grammars, is used in elementary schools and for
evangelism. Vital community information on topics like HIV/AIDS is
presented in Hiri Motu to the local people. Also the radio station, FM
Central, broadcasts in Hiri Motu. But it is not widely used, being
restricted to the southern part of the country.

Apart from these three languages we have other, mostly regional,
languages, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Regional languages and their speakers

Number of
Type
Province
Region
Language
Speakers
Enga
238,000
NAN
Enga
Highlands
Dobu
108,000
AN
Milne Bay
Southern
Melpa
130,000
NAN
W. Highlands
Highlands
Kate
86,000
NAN
Morobe
Momase
Kuanua
80,000
NA
E.N. Britain
Islands
Kuman
71,000
NAN
Simbu
Highlands
Yabem
60,000
NA
Morobe
Momase
Angal Heneng
55,000
NAN
S. Highlands
Highlands
Kamano-
50,000
NAN
E. Highlands
Highlands
Yagaria
Ambulas

44,000
NAN
E. Sepik
Momase
Hamtai
40,000
NAN
Gulf
Southern
Buin
18,000
NAN
N. Solomons
Islands
Kiwai
15,800
NAN
Western
Southern
Source: Nekitel (1998), Voices of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow


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Vernacular languages in education

The National Education Reform commenced in 1995. It created five
levels of education, starting with Elementary (Prep to Elementary 2),
Lower Primary (Grades 3 to 5), Upper Primary (Grades 6 to 8), Lower
Secondary (Grades 9 to 10) and Upper Secondary (Grades 11 to 12).

Table 4: Vernacular Literacy and Tok Ples Pri Skul (TPPS) Programmes in
Papua New Guinea (1994): totals for each province


No. TPSS
Province
No. TPSS
Province
programmes
programmes
Bougainville
68
Milne Bay
141
Central
29
Morobe
69
Chimbu
152
New Ireland
61
East New Britain
104
Northern
54
East Sepik
28
Sandaun
82
Eastern
64
Southern
102
Highlands
Highlands
Enga
132
West New
30
Britain
Gulf
35
Western
65
Madang
151
Western
23
Highlands
Manus
9

The use of vernacular languages is strongly recommended. This
introduces a language education policy that includes all languages in
Papua New Guinea at the elementary school level. Under this scheme,
local communities are given the responsibility of developing and
planning their own schools. This has resulted in about 1416 registered
elementary schools. With this, comes the pressure of training teachers,


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Planning in a Multi-lingual Country: The Case of Papua New Guinea

developing materials, designing syllabi, curricula and writing systems
for all languages.

The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) based in Kainatu, Eastern
Highlands, assists with designing writing systems for all the vernacular
languages. Since becoming involved in 1958, SIL has worked on over
285 languages and is currently working on more than 180, a total of
around 465 languages, so about half of the 854 languages have or will
soon have a writing system. Also, the Language Department at the
University offers some formal and informal training programmes to
assist both students and community members to develop and design their
own materials, writing systems, primers and storybooks. This has
assisted 100-160 communities to design their own writing system and
train local people to introduce and run their own tokples schools. The
University programme also facilitates community-based training where
the communities themselves initiate and manage their own programmes
using the resources they have. The University also assists communities
with the basic skills of writing, and they write their own stories. The
results are encouraging, and many requests are received to conduct such
programmes in remote rural areas.

The education reform increases the retention rate in schools, thereby
creating a huge demand on the existing educational infrastructure—
another area of concernbut research by the National Research Institute
indicates positive signs in this respect. In spite of that, more schools, in
particular rural schools, suffer greatly from the absence of physical
infrastructure development.
Summary

Papua New Guinea is a large country with a large population with
complex and unique cultures, and different epistemic and cosmic
systems. In these lie mysteries of understanding humanity, and its
psycho-emotive elements. This remains the challenge of our time in
Papua New Guinea.



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Recommendations

• That more assistance be made available to promote literacy in
rural areas where the rate is still low, among women especially.
• That assistance be provided to undertake surveys to check which
languages do not have a writing system.
• That more teachers be trained in their own vernacular language
to enable them to develop materials for teaching and learning.
• That local government be responsible, as stipulated in the
Organic on Provincial Governments, for funding elementary
education.
• That traditional and knowledgeable elderly community members
be recognised as important sources for maintaining and
promoting local cultures.








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