Research Guides: Pacific Linguistics: Basic Research Tools

Online dictionaries

Online Linguistics Resources

Ethnologue
Provides basic language information (languages spoken, number of speakers, etc.) for each language of the world.

Glottolog
Contains comprehensive reference information for the world's languages, especially the lesser known languages.

Endangered Languages (websites)
This Google-sponsored, Alliance for Linguistic Diversity project aims to provide information on languages worldwide, and includes many languages of the Pacific.
Kiribati (Gilbertese) Language Resources
A variety of resources on the Kiribati language, including an online dictionary and "finderlist" as compiled by Steve Trussel.

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Complete coverage is also given to various fields of linguistics including descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics. Dates covered are from 1973 to the present. Access is through Cambridge Scientific Abstracts. Includes some full text articles.

Linguistics Research Guide (website)
An online library guide to researching general topics in linguistics, using resources in the UH-Mānoa Libraries.
Nauran language resources (website)
A variety of resources, including online dictionary and wordlist, compiled by Steve Trussel.

Oceanic linguistics
Call Number: PL5001 .A345
Publication Date: 1962-
Available online here with UHM login.
Also available on microform.
Oceanic Linguistics is devoted to the study of the indigenous languages of the Oceanic area and parts of Southeast Asia. The languages within the scope of the journal are the original languages of Australia, the Papuan languages of New Guinea, and the languages of the Austronesian (or Malayo-Polynesian) family.

Open Language Archives Community (website)
The OLAC aims to create a "worldwide virtual library of language resources." Many Pacific languages are represented.
Polynesian Lexicon Project Online (database/website)
"POLLEX-Online is a large-scale comparative dictionary of Polynesian languages." (Quoted from home-page.)
Selected Links to Pacific-Language Related Websites (website)
A wide variety of links, as selected by librarians of the Pacific Collection.
Sikaina Archives (website)
Among other resources, this site includes a dictionary and grammar of the Sikaina (Solomon Islands) language.
SIL Language and Culture Archives
Works collected, compiled, or created by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, from 1935 to the present, that "describe, document, and/or communicate in the languages and cultures SIL serves." Includes full text online.

Basic Reference Books

Click on the highlighted titles below to see where you can find copies of these books in the Library. Check Locations! Items in the Voyager catalog marked UH Mānoa: Hamilton Pacific Reference or UH Mānoa: Hamilton Hawaiian Reference can be pulled directly off the reference shelves in the Hawaiian & Pacific reading room. For items marked UH Mānoa Hawaiian Collection or UH Mānoa Pacific Collection, request retrieval through the "Get This Item" link in Voyager. (Click here for instructions on how to request books using "Get This Item.")

For Hawaiian and Pacific research, all of the same tools exist as for any other kind of research. There are region- and subject-specific dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, histories, newspapers, academic journals and etc. Two very good starting points for general information:

The Pacific Islands: an encyclopedia by Brij V. Lal; Kate Fortune
Call Number: DU17 .P3 2000
ISBN: 082482265x
Publication Date: 2000
Information on major aspects of Pacific life, including the physical environment, peoples, history, politics, economy, society and culture.
The Far East and Australasia by Europa Publications
Call Number: DS 502 .F37
Annual publication with detailed overview information (history, geography, population and economic statistics) for every country in the Pacific, including U.S. affiliated (Hawaiʻi, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa). This can be a useful resource when researching conditions in the country of origin for Pacific Islanders living in Hawaiʻi. Most recent editions are located in the 1st floor reference section and in the Asia reference collection on the 4th floor, as well as in Hawaiian and Pacific Collections reference shelves.
Ethnologue: languages of the world by Gordon, Raymond G., editor; Barbara F. Grimes, contributing editor
Call Number: P371.E83 2005
ISBN: 9781556712166
Publication Date: 2005
A primary reference texts for basic information on Pacific languages.
Online version available here with UHM login.
The Austronesian languages by Robert Blust
Call Number: PL5026 .B58 2009
Publication Date: 2009
Available online.
Endangered Languages of Austronesia by Margaret Florey (Editor)
Call Number: PL5026 .E53 2010
ISBN: 9780199544547
Publication Date: 2010
Online version available here with UHM login.
Papuan languages of Oceania by Stephen A. Wurm
Call Number: PL6601 .W858
ISBN: 3878083572
Publication Date: 1982
The Papuan Languages of New Guinea by William A. Foley
Call Number: PL6601 .F65 1986
ISBN: 0521243556
Publication Date: 1986
This introduction to the descriptive and historical linguistics of the Papuan languages of New Guinea provide an accessible account of one of the richest and most diverse linguistic situations in the world.
Papuan pasts : cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples by Andrew Pawley
Call Number: DU740 .P36 2005
ISBN: 0858835622
Publication Date: 2005

UHM Pacific digital image collections

Creating Siapo
Images of making siapo (tapa/kapa) taken in 1967 in American Samoa by Joan Griffis.
Douglas Oliver Bougainville Research Collection
Most of the images taken 1938-1939 by Oliver in Bougainville.
George Grace Linguistic Research and Slides of Melanesia
Photos from throughout Melanesia, on a variety of subjects, taken between 1955 and 1956.
Hawaiian & Pacific Images
Images from 19th and early 20th century works about the Pacific.
Jack Tobin Marshall Islands Anthropology Collection
Images taken by Tobin from 1950-1985 in the Marshall Islands.
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Dr. Jack A. Tobin (1920-2010) first went to the Marshall Islands in 1950 as a student of Dr. Len Mason, to work on the Pacific Science Board's Coral Atoll Project (CAP) -- an initiative meant to study the needs of atoll dwellers with limited resources and growing populations. Arno Atoll was chosen as the first CAP research site, and the first 225 photos in this online collection derive from Dr. Tobin's time there. Later in 1950, Tobin was hired as an anthropological field consultant by the Civil Administration Unit of Naval Operations. Dr. Tobin extensively documented his time in Micronesia, both in written and photographic form. The photos in this collection date from 1950 through 1985, with the majority taken between 1950 and 1972. These images include not only the Marshalls, but also various atolls and islands throughout what was then the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. In addition to his own photographs, Dr. Tobin also amassed a large collection of military images, most of which deal with issues surrounding nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands.
Margo Duggan Collection
Images of Micronesia and Hawaiʻi taken in 1949-1954 by Duggan.
Nuclear Diaspora: Bikini and Enewetak
Images taken from 1946-1988 by Mason and Kiste throughout Micronesia, but mostly the Marshall Islands.
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The United States conducted more than eighty nuclear weapons tests on and around Bikini and Enewetak Atolls between 1946 and 1958. The slides in this collection derive from the anthropological fieldwork of Dr. Leonard “Len” Mason and Dr. Robert Kiste, both of whom served as longtime faculty members at the University of Hawaii-Manoa prior to their retirement. The early images in this collection document the lives of Bikinians after they were relocated first to Rongerik Atoll in 1946 and later to Kwajalein (1948), Kili and Jaluit (1949). These early photos were all taken by Len Mason, who returned in 1957 to do further work on Kili and Jaluit.
Pacific in Wartime
Images from multiple collections/authors about the Pacific during World War II (1940's).
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The images contained in this online collection are digital reproductions of materials in several distinct art and photograph collections, covering a range of geographic regions and time periods. Taken as a whole, these collections document many facets of life in the Pacific during World War II, from the brutal and the tragic to the mundane.
Rapanui: The Edmunds/Bryan Photograph Collection
Photographs of Rapa Nui taken in the early 1900s by Henry Percy Edmunds, and William Alanson Bryan Jr.
Steve Thomas Traditional Micronesian Navigation Collection
Images taken by Thomas in Satawal in the 1980s.
Trust Territory Archives Photograph Collection
Images that document the history of the American period in Micronesia (1947-1988).
Trust Territory Survey Maps
Scans from a collection of about 1,700 survey maps on microfiche. Many of the fiche are also surveyors notes (longitude/latitude etc.) that don't have an attached map with them.