Welcome to PNG Language Resources
Papua New Guinea is linguistically the most complex nation of the world. Over 800 languages are spoken in this Pacific country. This site aims to show some of this linguistic diversity by making available the research results carried out by members of SIL.
SIL in PNG is a branch of SIL International, a volunteer nonprofit organization that has worked in PNG since 1956. In cooperation with the PNG Department of Education since 1956, research has been carried out in more than 389 languages, and at the present time about 316 SIL members are actively working on projects in 190 different languages.
This site provides information on many of these languages, including phonologies, grammars, dictionaries, literacy, and other materials, as well as language maps. In many cases the materials have been previously published, but unpublished archived and unedited studies and reports are also made available here. We believe it is appropriate for even incomplete and dated analyses to be made available, but in such cases the reader should note the tentative nature of the research.
We expect this site to expand as more materials become available electronically. We trust you will share our fascination with this linguistically rich country.
Latest Additions
- Dadibi - Tok Pisin - English: po dage dabe 25-Apr-2008
- Gadsup nominal phrases and included clause constructions 25-Apr-2008
- Komba dialect survey 25-Apr-2008
- Komba sentence and paragraph types 25-Apr-2008
- Kosena body parts/Kosena relationship terms 25-Apr-2008
- Kosena English dictionary 25-Apr-2008
- Kosena final verb paradigms 25-Apr-2008
- Kosena grammar 25-Apr-2008
- Mt. Koiali phonemics 25-Apr-2008
- Phonemes and orthography of Komba 25-Apr-2008
- Phonemes of the Au language 25-Apr-2008
- Positional slots in Saliba complex verbs - a response to Margetts 25-Apr-2008
- Rotokas - English dictionary 25-Apr-2008
- Vocabulary of Rotokas--Pidgin--English 25-Apr-2008
- Yessan - Mayo phonemes 25-Apr-2008