Simbali is a poorly-documented
Baining language spoken in the southern
Gazelle Peninsula
The Gazelle Peninsula is a large peninsula in northeastern East New Britain, Papua New Guinea located on the island of New Britain within the Bismarck Archipelago, situated in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
The Rabaul caldera is located on t ...
on
New Britain
New Britain () is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi Island, Umboi the Dampie ...
,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...
.
Names
Simbali is alternatively known as Asimbali or Neu-Pommern.
Location
In 2012, the language was described as being strongest in the villages of Alingirka, Avungi () and Kavudemki ().
Status
A 2012
SIL report described the language as vigorous and used across all ages, with speakers having a strong ethno-linguistic identity and a desire to maintain the language. This is seemingly no longer true; the Simbali have since lost most of their land to palm oil and logging companies, a large risk factor for language death.
External links
* A collection of mostly open-access Simbali material is available at th
Endangered Languages Archive.
References
Languages of East New Britain Province
Baining languages
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