Doctoral Dissertation Research: Documentation of Mehek (NUX)

该项目的主要目标是对Mehek（nux）语言进行实地研究，这是塞皮克语系多摩分支的一种濒危语言。在巴布亚新几内亚西北部的桑达恩省，有几个村庄使用这种语言，其中最主要的是努库。亚当·哈特菲尔德将主要通过直接记录和转录顾问演讲中的记录故事来收集数据，并对已经收集的数据进行更正。该项目的目标是产生一个语法和字典的语言。社区成员将特别直接利用后者来教育儿童和作为成人的参考。除了提供一本字典外，社区成员还要求将他们的许多传统故事写成英文和托克皮辛文（巴布亚新几内亚的国语），并译成英文和托克皮辛文。许多语言学家估计，到本世纪末，世界上目前使用的语言将有一半以上灭绝。 新几内亚是一个独特的语言区，世界上五分之一的语言（大约6000种语言中的1200种，这是一个比经常引用的更保守的估计）在那里使用。 但在巴布亚新几内亚的许多地区，克里奥尔语托克皮辛正在迅速取代原来的本地语言。 对于梅赫克来说，最小的孩子不再说方言。 由于托克皮辛在巴布亚新几内亚这一地区迅速流行的原因同样适用于该国的大部分地区，很可能是该国有许多语言不再被年幼的儿童使用，因此需要尽快记录，至少在某种程度上，尽可能多的新几内亚语言。

The primary goal of the project involves linguistic field work on Mehek (nux), an endangered language in the Tama branch of the Sepik family. It is spoken in several villages, the primary of which is Nuku, in Sandaun Province in northwest Papua New Guinea. Adam Hatfield will collect data primarily via direct note-taking and transcription of recorded stories from consultant speech as well as making corrections to data which has already been collected. The project goal is to produce a grammar and dictionary of the language. The latter will, in particular, be utilized directly by the community members in both teaching children and as a reference for adults. In addition to providing a dictionary, community members have requested that many of their traditional stories be written and translated into both English and Tok Pisin (the national language of Papua New Guinea). Many linguists estimate that more than half the languages currently spoken in the world will be extinct by the end of this century. New Guinea is a unique linguistic area in that one fifth of the languages of the world (approximately 1200 out of about 6000, a more conservative estimate than is often cited) are spoken there. But in many areas of Papua New Guinea, the creole Tok Pisin is rapidly replacing the original vernacular languages. For Mehek, the youngest children no longer speak the vernacular language. And since the reasons why Tok Pisin is taking over so rapidly in this part of Papua New Guinea apply equally well to most areas of the country, it may well be the case that there are many languages in the country that are no longer spoken by young children, hence the need to document, at least to some extent, as many languages of New Guinea as possible as soon as possible.