This is an AHRC-funded project to document and describe Enggano, an endangered language spoken on Enggano Island, off the south coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The aim of the project is to collect and archive recordings of the language in order to preserve Enggano for future generations. We also plan to produce a descriptive grammar that details the grammatical structure of Enggano and compares the language with other related languages in order to explore its position within the Austronesian language family. Finally, we will work to empower the Enggano community to preserve and revitalise their own language, collaboratively producing educational materials for teaching Enggano in local schools.
This project seeks to document and describe the Enggano language, which has roughly 1500 speakers, and is spoken on Enggano Island, off the south coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Like many indigenous languages of Indonesia, Enggano is endangered, which means that only the older generations are still fluent and many children speak only Indonesian. Consequently, the main aim of the project is to collect audio and video recordings of traditional stories, conversations, cultural events, and descriptions of everyday tasks in Enggano in order to preserve the language for future generations. To make the collection widely accessible to community members, language learners and linguists, we will work with native speakers to transcribe and analyse the recordings and translate them into Indonesian and English. With the permission of speakers, we will make these recordings available on the project web page, and will deposit the dataset in a standard archive at the end of the project. This will allow the data to be preserved for future research and for the Enggano community and its descendants.
The second aim of the project is to produce a descriptive grammar of Enggano, thoroughly describing the major structures of the language. Our research will draw on previous work on the language, the dataset that we collect, and targeted work with Enggano speakers on the details of Enggano language structures. The resulting reference grammar will be valuable, particularly to linguists specialising in the Austronesian language family, since it will allow for comparison of the structure of Enggano to corresponding structures in other languages of the region. We intend to publish the grammar through an open-access publisher in order to make our work accessible to researchers in linguistics and related fields worldwide, and in particular to researchers in Indonesia, for whom academic books are sometimes inaccessible or too expensive to acquire.
The third aim is to compare Enggano with other related languages. For linguists, Enggano is an intriguing puzzle: it has been claimed by some linguists to be a member of the Austronesian language family, like many other languages of the region, but by other linguists to be an isolate with no known relation to other languages. We believe that Enggano is an unusual Austronesian language, but further evidence is required to firmly establish the place of Enggano within Austronesian. Almost all of the work that has been conducted on the genetic affiliation of Enggano is based on research by the linguist Hans Kähler, conducted on a single seven-month visit in 1937-8. Additional work is needed to test and supplement Kähler's data and to determine how the language has changed in the intervening years. We will devote one or more chapters of the grammar to an exploration of Enggano's genetic affiliation and relation to other Austronesian languages.
Finally, we will work to empower the Enggano community to preserve and revitalise their own language. A central component of this effort is our plan to develop educational materials for teaching the Enggano language in local schools, targeting Years 7-9 (ages 13-15). We will collaborate with local educators and community leaders to develop these materials and to raise awareness of language and cultural endangerment. We will also work with local government institutions to ensure that our educational materials meet local government standards.
The three-year project is funded by a research grant from the Arts & Humanities Research Council, UK. It builds on several previous visits to the Enggano community by Professor Mary Dalrymple, University of Oxford, and Professor I Wayan Arka, Australian National University, supported by grants from the Endangered Languages Fund and Oxford’s John Fell Fund in 2018-19. During these visits, the project was discussed with elders from the five Enggano clans, as well as teachers and students at local schools. The project and its aims have the support and approval of the Enggano community.
