Fluxus Editions

Abstract. The Naasioi Otomaung alphabet first came to light during the Bougainville Crisis of 1988–1998. Created by the Naasioi-speaking leader of a politico-religious movement in Kieta district, its emergence follows the pattern of numerous other scripts of Asia and the Pacific that have developed in recent times in the context of anti-colonial confrontations [kelly2016a,kelly2018a]. This paper provides the first ever public report on the form, structure and context of the script, early efforts at documentation, and its prospects for future development. The script exhibits a formal influence from cursivised Roman while its inventory of letters presents as a cypher for the English alphabet, including letters such as <x> and <z> that are not present in standard Naasioi orthographies [hurd1966a]. From the perspective of its users, however, the alphabet is designed to universally encode any language: the word otomaung is in fact a neologism roughly meaning ‘able to express anything’. The term is also polysemous, variously denoting the letter <A>, as well as the religious community in which the alphabet was created. The forms of the letters, meanwhile, are said to have been inspired by ceremonial scarring, a practice that is now rare. Reproducing these forms in writing is thus seen as an act of cultural preservation by other means. Although at one time the script became part of a local school curriculum, literacy is now limited to a small number of individuals. Systematic documentation and description of Naasioi Otomaung has suffered various setbacks, from political disruptions to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, most of the documentation to date has been carried out by post, email, and social media correspondence. Despite the obvious limitations and inefficiencies of these channels, ‘virtual’ fieldwork has been unexpectedly productive, resulting in an accurate record of the script, preliminary information about its historical and ethnographic circumstances and the development of a new font. With Bougainville’s recent advances towards political independence, the Otomaung Naasioi alphabet may soon rise to greater prominence.

References References in BIB How to cite How to cite in BIB

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@INPROCEEDINGS{bartlett2011a,
   AUTHOR = {Bartlett, Lesley and Lopéz, Dina and Vasudevan, Lalitha and Warriner, Doris},
   EDITOR = {Levinson, Bradley A. and Pollock, Mica},
   TITLE = {The anthropology of literacy},
   BOOKTITLE = {A companion to the anthropology of education},
   PUBLISHER = {John Wiley \& Sons},
   YEAR = {2011},
   PAGES = {154--176},
}

@INPROCEEDINGS{basso1977a,
   AUTHOR = {Basso, Keith H. and Anderson, Ned},
   TITLE = {A western Apache writing system: The symbols of Silas John},
   BOOKTITLE = {Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Change},
   PUBLISHER = {Elsevier},
   YEAR = {1977},
   PAGES = {227--252},
}

@BOOK{blackwood1935a,
   AUTHOR = {Blackwood, Beatrice},
   TITLE = {Both sides of Buka passage: An ethnographic study of social, sexual, and economic questions in the North-Western Solomon Islands},
   PUBLISHER = {Clarendon Press},
   ADDRESS = {Oxford},
   YEAR = {1935},
}

@ARTICLE{cox2013a,
   AUTHOR = {Cox, John},
   TITLE = {The magic of money and the magic of the state: Fast money schemes in Papua New Guinea},
   JOURNAL = {Oceania},
   YEAR = {2013},
   VOLUME = {3},
   PAGES = {175--191},
}

@BOOK{dugast1950a,
   AUTHOR = {Dugast, Idelette and Jeffreys, M.David W.},
   TITLE = {L'écriture des Bamum: Sa naissance, son évolution, sa valeur phonétique, son utilisation},
   SERIES = {Populations},
   PUBLISHER = {Mémoires de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire},
   ADDRESS = {Paris},
   YEAR = {1950},
   VOLUME = {4},
}

@UNPUBLISHED{ebbeler2014a,
   AUTHOR = {Ebbeler, Sheldon},
   TITLE = {Uriovakiro: a polysyllabary for Rotokas},
   YEAR = {2014},
   NOTE = {\url{https://www.omniglot.com/pdfs/uriovakiro.pdf}},
}

@ARTICLE{emanuel-a,
   AUTHOR = {Emanuel, Irvin and Biddulph, John},
   TITLE = {Pediatric field survey of the Nasioi and Kwaio of the Solomon Islands},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Tropical Pediatrics},
   YEAR = {1969},
   VOLUME = {15},
   NUMBER = {2},
   PAGES = {55--69},
}

@BOOK{frizzi-muenchen-a,
   AUTHOR = {Frizzi-München, Ernst},
   TITLE = {Ein Beitrag zur Ethnologie von Bougainville und Buka, mit spezieller Berücksichtung der Nasioi},
   PUBLISHER = {B.~G. Teubner},
   ADDRESS = {Leipzig \& Berlin},
   YEAR = {1914},
}

@ARTICLE{hermkens2013a,
   AUTHOR = {Hermkens, Anna-Karina},
   TITLE = {Like Moses who led is people to the Promised Land: Nation and state-building in Bougainville},
   JOURNAL = {Oceania},
   YEAR = {2013},
   VOLUME = {3},
   PAGES = {192--207},
}

@BOOK{hurd1966a,
   AUTHOR = {Hurd, Conrad and Hurd, Phyllis},
   TITLE = {Nasioi language course},
   PUBLISHER = {Summer Institute of Linguistics},
   ADDRESS = {Port Moresby},
   YEAR = {1966},
}

@ARTICLE{kelly2016a,
   AUTHOR = {Kelly, Piers},
   TITLE = {Introducing the Eskaya writing system: A complex Messianic script from the southern Philippines},
   JOURNAL = {The Australian Journal of Linguistics},
   YEAR = {2016},
   VOLUME = {36},
   NUMBER = {1},
   PAGES = {131--163},
}

@ARTICLE{kelly2018a,
   AUTHOR = {Kelly, Piers},
   TITLE = {The art of not being legible: Invented writing systems as technologies of resistance in mainland Southeast Asia},
   JOURNAL = {Terrain},
   YEAR = {2018},
   VOLUME = {70},
   PAGES = {1--24},
}

@INPROCEEDINGS{kelly2018b,
   AUTHOR = {Kelly, Piers},
   EDITOR = {Ferrara, Silvia and Miguel Valério},
   TITLE = {The invention, transmission and evolution of writing: Insights from the new scripts of West Africa},
   BOOKTITLE = {Paths into script formation in the ancient Mediterranean},
   PUBLISHER = {Studi Micenei ed Egeo Anatolici},
   ADDRESS = {Rome},
   YEAR = {2018},
   PAGES = {189--209},
}

@ARTICLE{regan2002a,
   AUTHOR = {Regan, Anthony J.},
   TITLE = {Bougainville: Beyond survival},
   JOURNAL = {Cultural Survival Quarterly},
   YEAR = {2002},
   VOLUME = {3},
   PAGES = {20--24},
}

@UNPUBLISHED{roka2014a,
   AUTHOR = {Roka, Leonard Fong},
   TITLE = {The legacy of Damien Dameng, the father of Meekamui},
   BOOKTITLE = {},
   YEAR = {2014},
   NOTE = {PNG Attitude, \url{https://www.pngattitude.com/2014/03/the-legacy-of-damien-dameng-the-father-of-meekamui.html}},
}

@ARTICLE{smalley1998a,
   AUTHOR = {Smalley, William A. and Wimuttikosol, Nina},
   TITLE = {Another Hmong Messianic script and its texts},
   JOURNAL = {Written Language \& Literacy},
   YEAR = {1998},
   VOLUME = {1},
   NUMBER = {1},
   PAGES = {103--128},
}

@BOOK{street1984a,
   AUTHOR = {Street, Brian},
   TITLE = {Literacy in theory and practice},
   PUBLISHER = {Cambridge University Press},
   ADDRESS = {Cambridge},
   YEAR = {1984},
}

@INPROCEEDINGS{tryon2015a,
   AUTHOR = {Tryon, Darrell},
   EDITOR = {Regan, Anthony J. and Griffin, Helga M.},
   TITLE = {The languages of Bougainville},
   BOOKTITLE = {Bougainville before the conflict},
   PUBLISHER = {ANU Press},
   ADDRESS = {Canberra},
   YEAR = {2015},
   PAGES = {31--46},
}

Piers Kelly (2020), “The Naasioi Otomaung Alphabet of Bougainville. A Preliminary Sketch From Afar,” in Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2020 (Yannis Haralambous, Ed.), Grapholinguistics and Its Applications, Vol. 5, Brest: Fluxus Editions, 825–846.


@INPROCEEDINGS{gla5-kell,
   AUTHOR = {Piers Kelly},
   EDITOR = {Haralambous, Yannis},
   TITLE = {{The Naasioi Otomaung Alphabet of Bougainville. A~Preliminary Sketch From Afar}},
   BOOKTITLE = {{Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2020}},
   SERIES = {{Grapholinguistics and Its Applications}},
   VOLUME = {5},
   PUBLISHER = {Fluxus Editions},
   ADDRESS = {Brest},
   YEAR = {2020},
   PAGES = {825--846},
   DOI = {https://doi.org/10.36824/2020-graf-kell},
}