Projects

Unserdeutsch (Rabaul Creole German)

Archive 2018

Note from 15 December 2018

Plenary talk by Prof Maitz in Bern

On 15 December 2018, Prof Péter Maitz gave a plenary talk at the CSLS workshop “Language, Dialect and Periphery” at the University of Bern. The talk dealt with the fate of the Unserdeutsch language community at the societal and linguistic periphery.

Note from 1 November 2018

Article about Unserdeutsch in "Ogmios"

Issue 65 of the magazine "Ogmios - The Newsletter of the Foundation for Endangered Languages" contains an article about Unserdeutsch.

Click here to read the article.

Note from July 2018

Upcoming trip of the project team to Australia

The Unserdeutsch research project team from Augsburg will travel to Australia in July, 2018. There, the team will participate in a workshop about "language emergence in multilingual contexts", which takes place on 11/12 July at the Language and Culture Research Center (LCRC) in Cairns. This is part of a two-year research project headed by Prof Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (James Cook University, AUS) and Prof Péter Maitz (University of Augsburg, GER), which is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) plus Universities Australia and involves research on Unserdeutsch. Apart from the workshop, the team will conduct some further fieldwork in the area of Cairns and Brisbane. The latest newsletter of the Australian Linguistic Society reports about the upcoming stay of the project team at the LCRC:

Note from 28 June 2018

New publication: research article in an edited volume by DeGruyter

A research article by Prof Péter Maitz and Siegwalt Lindenfelser appeared in the anthology "Variation - Norms - Identities", edited by Prof. Alexandra Nicole Lenz and Dr. Albrecht Plewnia. The article is titled "Gesprochenes Alltagsdeutsch im Bismarck-Archipel around 1900" (Spoken Everyday German in the Bismarck Archipelago around 1900) and explores the question of which German dialects were spoken in the mission school at the time Unserdeutsch was created.

Click here for the table of contents of the anthology.

Note from 21 May 2018

Plenary talk by Prof Maitz in Ascona

On 21 May 2018, Prof Péter Maitz gave a plenary talk at the international conference „VARIATIONist Linguistics meets CONTACT Linguistics“ in Ascona in Switzerland. The talk dealt with „Language contact and language variation in the German South Sea colonies“.

The conference programme is available here.

Note from 7 April 2018

Presentation by Prof Maitz in Bozen

On 7 April 2018, Prof Péter Maitz gave a speech during the 4th Workshop on Historical Aspects of Multilingualism at the Free University of Bozen. It dealt with the theoretical distinction between mixed languages and boarding school creoles, which is relevant for the discussion of Unserdeutsch.

The workshop programme is available here.

Note from 4 March 2018

Article in the in-flight magazine Paradise from Air Niugini, the national airline of Papua New Guinea

An article about Unserdeutsch was published in Air Niugini's in-flight magazine. It is titled "PNG's endangered language".

You can view the article here

Note from 4 March 2018

Article in the daily newspaper „Die Rheinpfalz“

The German daily newspaper "Die Rheinpfalz" published an article about Unserdeutsch titled "De mann, de frau, de kind".

Click here to view the article.

Note from 22 February 2018

Unserdeutsch in a NDR report about the Bismarck Archipelago

The German television station NDR has broadcast a report on the Bismarck Archipelago and the language Unserdeutsch in its programme "Länder - Menschen - Abenteuer". It should be pointed out at this point that the report contains incorrect information about the language community in several places.

Click here to watch the report.

Note from 21 February 2018

Seminar by Prof Maitz in Cairns

On 21 February 2018, Prof Péter Maitz gave a seminar about the topic "Unserdeutsch: A borderline creole (?)" at the Language and Culture Research Center (LCRC) of the James Cook University in Cairns.

Note from 9 February 2018

Unserdeutsch at the IQ podcast of Bayerischer Rundfunk

In the "IQ Podcast" of Bayrischer Rundfunk, which focuses on topics in science and research, an approximately four-minute contribution about Unserdeutsch was published. The contribution is called "Warum sprechen Menschen in Papua-Neuguinea Deutsch? (Why do people in Papua New Guinea speak German?)"

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Note from 1 February 2018

Another presentation by Prof Maitz in Brisbane

On 1 February 2018, Prof Péter Maitz gave another presentation at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. This time it was within the context of the 5th annual conference "New Ways of Analyzing Variation – Asia Pacific" (NWAV-AP5) with the theme "Language Contact and Variation". Prof Péter Maitz spoke about "Social Forces in Language Evolution: The Case of Unserdeutsch in PNG".

The conference programme is available here.

Note from 26 January 2018

20-minute radio report on „Deutschlandfunk Nova“

The radio station "Deutschlandfunk Nova" has published a 20-minute contribution titled "Unbekannte Sprache auf Papua-Neuguinea (Unknown language on Papua New Guinea)" by Rebekka Endler.

You can listen to the radio report here

Note from 15 January – 28 March 2018

Guest professorship of Prof Maitz in Cairns

From 15 January until 28 March 2018 Prof Péter Maitz holds a guest professorship at the James Cook University in Cairns. During this time he puts further effort into the research of Unserdeutsch.