Language Skills and Ethnobiological Knowledge in the Young and Educated Indigenous Melpa Speakers in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Indigenous populations are rapidly losing their languages and culture, including traditional knowledge of nature, passed down orally from generation to generation. Here we examine knowledge of bird and plant species among the young and educated cohort of the Melpa people of Papua New Guinea and seek to understand the main causes of the decline in this knowledge. We show that although the young, educated Melpa speakers remain fluent in their native language, they are losing their ethnobiological knowledge. We have uncovered the gaps in bird knowledge, including culturally important ones such as birds of paradise. Knowledge of traditionally used plant species is also limited, with a total of 117 species listed by 1,313 respondents. Nearly half of the plant uses listed by respondents concerned nonnative plant species. The identified drivers of the decline in Melpa language proficiency and ethnobiological knowledge include urbanization, the use of Neo-Melanesian pidgin and English at home, mixed-language marriages, and the decline in traditional skills caused by lifestyle changes. These socioeconomic trends are largely endogenous, reflecting the choices and aspirations of the Melpa people. Therefore, the ongoing loss of traditional knowledge is difficult to reverse. Our study shows that ethnobiological knowledge can be endangered even in large and vigorously used Indigenous languages, such as Melpa.