JH1-001 - Recording of the Kiwai dialect from Urama Island

This material consists of -- a) copies of a series of audiotapes; and -- b) a set of written texts from the same period. -- It was mostly collected in the early to mid sixties, though some goes back to the fifties. I have no record of the exact dates on which the recordings were made. -- Some of the written texts (such as the one entitled Tuoma) have been transcribed from the audiotapes, others were dictated to the writer. There is one text, written by a semi-literate Gope man, which I have left in the author’s own hand along with a few short autograph letters written by Uroma speakers. -- The original audiotapes, the majority of which are 5” BASF reels, remain in my possession. They were digitised to 24 bit, 48 kHz, WAV files by me between 2005 and 2007. I would happy to release the originals for recopying if any of the digital copies are found to be of poor quality. -- The document JH1-001-NOTESKIWAUMAI contains information about the collection and about the language under the following headings: About the language p.4 -- Location p.4 -- Earlier work on related languages p.4 -- Dialects p.5 -- Phonology p.7 -- Miscellaneous notes on grammar p.13 -- Odd intransitives p.13 -- Number p.16 -- Numerals p.21 -- Imperative p.23 -- Temporal expressions p.24 -- Inclusive, exclusive p.28 -- Verbless sentences p.30 -- Kaupia p.32 -- WH-questions p.32 -- Coordination p.33 -- Suffix –ha p.34 -- Some verbal constructions p.35 -- Relative clauses p.37 -- Some verbal prefixes p.39 -- Number indexation p.42 -- Miscellaneous vocabulary p.44. Language as given: Kiwai