Typological and historical discovery through language documentation of Walman, Srenge, Aro, and Eho, four critically endangered languages

世界上大约五分之一的语言（即1200多种语言）在新几内亚使用。这比欧洲大陆和亚洲所有语言的总和还要多。然而，新几内亚只有不到5%的语言被详细描述过，而对于大多数语言，我们几乎一无所知。我们从过去的经验中知道，新几内亚语言表现出罕见的类型学特征，通过这些特征，我们可以更好地理解语言是如何随着时间的推移而变化的，以及语言系统是如何组织起来的。我们现在必须记录这些特征，因为新几内亚的许多语言正严重濒危，幼儿不再学习这些语言。到本世纪末，新几内亚的大多数语言可能会灭绝或几乎灭绝。语言是人类行为最复杂的形式，但对于每一种灭绝的语言，我们永远失去了对人类意义的这一重要部分的认识。纽约州立大学布法罗分校的马修·德莱尔和语言学家帕梅拉·布朗以及两名研究生将在新几内亚北部的托里切利山脉或附近进行实地考察。他们将完成或创建四种语言（Walman, Srenge， Aro和Eho）的字典、语法和文本集，这些语言都属于托里拆利组。文档将包括复杂的动词连词、类型学上不寻常的连缀模式和词序变化的描述，这些变化是由对象的主题角色决定的。从这个项目中收集的数据将从濒危语言档案中获取。

About one fifth of the languages of the world (that is, over 1200 languages) are spoken in New Guinea. This is more than all the languages of mainland Europe and Asia combined. Yet fewer than 5% of the languages of New Guinea have been described in any detail and for the majority, we know next to nothing. We know from past experience that New Guinean languages exhibit rare typological features through which we can understand better how language changes through time and how language systems are organized. We must document these features now as many of the languages of New Guinea are seriously endangered and are no longer being learned by young children. Probably a majority of the languages of New Guinea will be extinct or almost extinct by the end of this century. Language is the most complex form of human behavior, but for every language that become extinct, we forever lose knowledge about this essential part of what it means to be human. Matthew Dryer of SUNY at Buffalo along with linguist Pamela Brown and two graduate students will conduct fieldwork in northern New Guinea in or near the Torricelli Mountains. They will complete or create dictionaries, grammars and texts collections for four languages, Walman, Srenge, Aro, and Eho, all of which are of the Torricelli group. The documentation will include descriptions of complex verbal conjunction, typologically unusual infixation patterns, and variations in word order that are determined by the object's thematic role. The data collected from this project will be accessible from the Endangered Languages Archive.