A Sociolinguistic Survey of the Malalamai [mmt] Language Area

This survey investigates vitality and language and dialect boundaries of the Malalamai [mmt] language on the eastern coast of Madang Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG). This was one of the few Austronesian languages that had not been surveyed in this area. The survey team used wordlists, observation, interviews and participatory methods in the villages of Malalamai, Bonga and Yara. Pre-existing wordlists from nearby or related Austronesian languages were compared to those elicited during the survey to calculate lexical similarities between them and the language surveyed.

Linguistically, there was virtually no difference between the villages surveyed, and comparison with other languages in the area shows that the Malalamai language is distinct. In addition, reported data indicate that Malalamai is limited to only the villages surveyed. This survey report concludes that although continued and increasing use of Tok Pisin could influence language change, current vitality is strong.