Life and death on Karas: Ten Uruangnirin texts

Eline Visser

Life and death on Karas: Ten Uruangnirin texts

Authors

Eline Visser

Synopsis

This collection of ten texts in Uruangnirin offers insights into the language and culture of the inhabitants of the Karas Islands in eastern Indonesia. All stories relate to life and death. They range from narratives about important life events such as circumcision, engagement and burial to accounts of natural and supernatural threats to the environment of the Uruangnirin speakers.

The presentation of the texts are as follows: first, the complete text in Uruangnirin with a free translation into English; second, an interlinearized version for detailed linguistic analysis.

The texts are preceded by a brief introduction to the Uruangnirin language and its speakers, which provides readers with a linguistic and anthropological background.

Author Biography

Eline Visser

Eline Visser is a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden. She wrote a grammar of Kalamang as her PhD thesis (2021), and has since done research on Papuan and Austronesian languages of eastern Indonesia. She targets undescribed and endangered languages, with the goal of creating descriptive materials and rich audiovisual archives.