Lost Languages of Papua New Guinea

It has been reported that several languages previously known to be spoken in PNG have already been lost.

Thanks to the work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL *), the Australian national University and the University of Papua new Guinea's work on languages it can be said that the following languages have already died out.

Language	Region or Province	Comment
BINA	Central Province	In 2000 only two primary speakers.
REMA	Morehead District, Western Province
KANIET	Anchorite and Kaniet Islands of Western Manus Province.
ARIBWATSA	Morobe Province	No known speakers.
HERMIT	Luf and Maron Island, in Hermit - Manus Province
MULAHA	Southeast of Gaire - Central Province
OUMA	Labu - Central Province
URUAVA	Southeastern coast of Bougainville
KARAMI	Inland border of Gulf and Western province
YOBA	North of Magori, Central Province	Two non primary speakers

Information extracted from article by Dr. Steven Winduo - director of the Melanesian and Pacific studies (MAPS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Papua New Guinea.

* The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) deals with over 285 of the PNG "tokples" languages.
Please visit a page on this web site about the work of SIL