Linguist to save Arapesh language

AN American linguist is trying to stop an endangered language in Papua New Guinea from becoming extinct.
Lise Dobrin, from the University of Virginia, first recorded the Ara­pesh language 15 years ago.
Now, after winning a fellowship from the university, she is working to develop an Arapesh grammar and digital language archive online.
Prof Dobrin told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat the language group had been relatively large by PNG standards, with about 25,000 speakers.
But Tok Pisin and English had made serious inroads into the use of Arapesh and it was difficult to count present speakers.
The language-using group is based in north-coast Wewak, in the Sepik, and the Papuan border, and then among communities further inland.
Dobrin said she first began studying the language purely as a linguist. – Radio Australia