Does Having Gold on Your Land Change Your Language Use? Yes!

Many countries blessed with raw resources such as minerals have been cursed with the resulting conflict over those resources. PNG is no exception. Thankfully, unlike some other places, it hasn’t resulted in large-scale war here in PNG, probably partly due to the multitude of languages and cultures involved.

The Silisili Survey (5 days away!) will take us to a valley downstream from a gold mine. This mine has been in operation for decades if not longer. Locals are said to pan gold from the river we’ll be traveling along; since I’m taking a Frisbee anyway, I might try my hand ; )

The common complaint in PNG is, “Look, these minerals are in my land; why am I not getting any benefit from them? The foreign companies come, destroy our environment, take our minerals, and we don’t see the profit!”

Without getting too much into the debate, let’s admit that it must seems very unfair to the PNG’an. They see the company come in with an insane amount of equipment, hire a bunch of workers, and haul away all of their raw materials. If they live close enough they may get work with the company but even still feel inadequately recompensed.
One of our jobs it to determine how much this kind of scenario has impacted the area we’re surveying. An area’s economics IS interesting to us, but more important to us is the impact these companies are having on language. Does it seem like everything comes back to language for us? Well, it pretty much does.

I know of a language group – virtually an entire tribe – that relocated to be nearer to a mine. Are they likely to retain language and culture, having relocated among other people groups for economic advantage? Probably not. Less drastic but almost as impactful are instances where a man leaves his home area to work at a company, where he is immersed in an environment in which his language isn’t spoken. He may return to his home area with the status of a working man, and other people may emulate his language use because of that status. These are the types of things we attempt to measure. It can definitely be a brain-twister.

P.S. If I find any gold nuggets, I’ll probably keep it to myself ; )