Why does PNG have so many languages?

When people find out that 839 of the world’s 7,139 living languages are indigenous to Papua New Guinea (PNG), they are understandably shocked. That’s almost 12% of the world’s languages in a country with a total landmass of only slightly more than that of California! Needless to say, PNG is home to more languages than any country on the planet. Oftentimes people ask us, “Are those 839 languages actually distinct languages, or just dialects?” A complete answer to this question would require carefully distinguishing between the definition of language vs. dialect, which I’m not going to get into here. Suffice it to say that dialects of a language are mutually intelligible. That is, two people who speak different dialects of the same language can still understand each other relatively easily. Take, for example, all the dialects of English: Australian, British, American, etc. While there are vocabulary and accent differences, all are easily recognizable as English and are mutually intelligible.

Back to the original question…The short answer is that these 839 languages in PNG are distinct languages, not just dialects. In fact, the Mubami language (which is one of those 839 languages) likely has two dialects–Mubami and Dausami (the latter dialect being primarily spoken only in Ugu village).

This raises an obvious question…

Why so many languages?!?!

Geographical Barriers

One of the main factors in PNG which has led to the proliferation of languages over time is the rugged terrain throughout much of the country. The Mubami area, for instance, is deep in the tropical rainforest and has virtually no infrastructure to facilitate easy transportation. There are no paved roads, just miles and miles of dense rainforests crisscrossed by rivers.

In the past two or three decades, logging roads have been built as logging companies moved into the area, but these red clay “roads” can go from smooth-sailing to virtually impassable with just a few minutes of rain. Besides this, they were built long after the languages in the area developed.

In such context, people groups in PNG remain relatively isolated and, over hundreds and thousands of years, languages diverge widely.

Cultural Barriers

But, even in locations in which the geographical barriers are not substantial (such as language groups which are in very close proximity to one another and have frequent contact), cultural differences can help to explain some of the linguistic variation and divergence. This sometimes includes feuds between different tribes, but other times may just be caused by different cultural practices that result in social isolation and, eventually, linguistic divergence as well. For example, think of the cultural differences between Southerners and Northerners in the USA, “Rednecks” and “Yankees,” and the linguistic differences that accompany those cultural differences. Language is often used to express cultural identity. In such contexts, two people groups who view themselves as culturally distinct may even intentionally exaggerate the differences in their languages, perhaps eventually resulting in divergent languages.

But regardless of how or why they came to be as they are, the fact remains that PNG is home to 839 living languages, not counting all of the dialects within those languages.

How similar are the languages in PNG?

Wrapping your head around the linguistic diversity of PNG is quite a task. How can there be so many languages in such a small area? Surely, the languages must all be very similar to one another, right? Do they really all need their own Bible translation?

Again, simplistic answers don’t capture an accurate picture. I suppose a simple answer would be “sometimes,” but that’s not very satisfying!

Lexical Similarity

In many cases, there is a great degree of similarity and relatedness between languages. Lexical similarity is one way to measure the similarity of related languages. Lexical similarity refers to how much vocabulary is shared between two languages. It isn’t a complete representation of how related two languages are, but it’s a good start. For example, French and Italian are closely related languages and share approximately 89% lexical similarity. If you know one of these two languages, picking up the other shouldn’t be too challenging. On the other hand, native English speakers will find French a bit more challenging than do Italians since French and English share only 27% lexical similarity. That’s enough that you’ll recognize a fair bit of words as being cognates, making French a much easier language to learn than, say, Chinese, but it’s not enough for mutual intelligibility.

German, on the other hand, is much more closely related to English than the Romance languages and shares a whopping 60% lexical similarity to English. (Of course, lexical similarity doesn’t account for grammatical and syntactical differences, which makes learning German still quite a challenge.) Dutch is also very closely related to English, as is Scots , which is so close that some argue that it should be classified as merely a dialect of English rather than a distinct language. The real question, for our purposes, is whether it is distinct enough to need or benefit from its own Bible translation. Many speakers of Scots say that it is. Want to see for yourself? Try reading a couple verses from Matthew 2 in The New Testament in Scots and tell me what you think below. Put yourself in their shoes–would you be satisfied with a Bible written in Scottish English? You might be able to read it a bit, but it would sure be a frustrating experience!

Lexical Similarity in PNG languages

So, how similar are PNG languages? I won’t attempt to make blanket statements here. Instead, I’ll just stick to the Mubami language. Mubami (tsx) is part of a family of languages collectively called the “Minanibai” family. The Minanibai family includes four living languages (Foia Foia, Hoia Hoia, Hoyahoya, and Minanibai). By way of disclaimer, these languages have not been studied extensively and lexical similarity is a somewhat subjective and incomplete form of comparison, anyhow, so such statistics should not be relied upon as gospel truth. Still, the picture is pretty clear. The closest living relatives to Mubami have only 52% lexical similarity. That means that Mubami has less in common with its closest living relatives than English does with German.

Lexical Similarity of Mubami to the closest related languages:

• Foia Foia: 52%
• Hoia Hoia: 47%
• Hoyahoya: 52%
• Minanibai: 42%

The fact is that if two languages were similar enough that they could use the same Bible with ease, then we probably wouldn’t classify them as different languages! So, when we say that there are 400 languages left in the Pacific region that still need a Bible translation project to begin, we’ve already taken into account their lexical similarity and many other factors (mutual intelligibility, the viability of the language, etc.).

Why not just teach them English?

So, in light of the great number of remaining languages that still need a Bible, it could be asked, “Why not just teach them English?” While this sounds like a reasonable alternative, there are a host of missiological, cultural, and linguistic reasons why this doesn’t work, which I’ve explained in this post, so I won’t elaborate on that here. But the short answer is that this method, like the ancient kingdom of the Babylonians, has “…been weighed in the balances and found wanting.” (Daniel 5:27, ESV)

The Task Remains

Regardless of how or why there are so many languages, the fact remains that there ARE a lot of languages in PNG, and many of them need their own Bible translation. It’s true that most of these language groups are small–the number of people who speak Mubami is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3,000 or so according to Ethnologue and Joshua Project. But, Scripture is clear that we are to reach people from EVERY tribe and tongue people, not just the big ones (Mt. 28:18-20; Rev. 7:9). God loves the Mubami people just as much as he does English, French, and German speaking people. But if they are to grow in their knowledge and walk with God, they need to have access to “all that [Christ] has commanded,” (Mt. 28:19) and the best way we know to accomplish that mission is by giving them the same gift we were given several centuries ago–God’s Word in the language that speaks to their hearts.

References

The Hills serve with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea (PNG). They are currently preparing to return to PNG to resume their work in Bible translation with the Mubami people. If you would like to be a part of bringing God’s Word to the Mubami people, you can partner with their Wycliffe ministry through prayer, special gifts, or regular monthly giving.