There are around 1000 indigenous languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea and the neighboring area (Foley 2000: 358) and this study focuses on the address terms in Amele, one of Trans-New Guinea languages (Meyerhoff 2015: 66). Amele speakers are mostly bilingual of Amele (Trans-New Guinea) and Tok Pisin (an English-based creole), and they have been maintaining their indigenous Amele language.
This study investigated a variety of address terms in Amele and Tok Pisin, such as “father” and “brother”. This study found that the term “wari” means “friend(s), brother(s)” for men and women. When Amele speakers use address terms, they have two choices, names of Amele or Tok Pisin as in the following.
Address terms: Amele/ Tok Pisin and “meaning”
- Wari (Amele)/ poro (Tok Pisin) “friend, brother”
- Mam / papa “father”
- Ai/ mama “mother”
- Osomi/ tambu ”brother in law, sister in law”
- --- / pasta “pastor”
- --- / tisa “teacher”
There are many address terms both in Amele and Tok Pisin, but several words such as “pastor” and “teacher” lack the corresponding words in Amele. Basically, the kinship terms are preferably used in Amele, but other address terms outside the community exist only in Tok Pisin, such as “teacher” and “government official”. Particularly, the term “wari” is frequently used inside the Amele community, and this term is not used outside the community (cf. Wurm 1979, Meyerhoff 2015). When the Amele people recognizes the people outside the community, they stop using “wari”, because, they are not their group. This distinction is reflected in the indigenous language-based relationship, called “wantok” (literally, it means “one talk” whose language is the same).
Finally, this study claims that Amele speakers use address terms in Amele within the community, and the Tok Pisin terms outside. In sum, the address word “wari” is a marker which distinguishes whether the person addressed is inside the community or not.
References
- Foley, W. A. 2000. The languages of New Guinea. Annual review of anthropology, 357–404.
- Meyerhoff, M. 2015. Introducing sociolinguistics. Taylor & Francis.
- Wurm, S. 1979. New Guinea and neighboring areas: a sociolinguistic laboratory. Mouton.
