Now I understand! 07 May, 2013 – Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea – Written by Tim Scott with Irene & Roland Fumey When the Kuni people learn something new, they respond with “ts, ts, ts” Around 1989 SIL received a request from the Kuni people at Lake Murray in Western Province to send someone to help them with language development and Bible translation. There are over two thousand Kuni speakers living on the peninsulas and islands around Lake Murray, the largest lake in PNG. The Kuni people speak the Kuni dialect of the Kuni-Boazi language. Roland and Irene Fumey began working there in 1990. (There is another language called Kuni in Central Province, but it is unrelated to the Kuni of Western Province). They had just begun working there when a language helper told them, “This word means: He went” but the next day the same word suddenly meant, “He will go.” The Fumeys realised that the language has many grammatical tones, which means that the same word has different meanings depending on the tone used when saying it. Since then, they have identified over a hundred such tonal patterns. It took many years to discover all the tones used in the language. Originally, the Fumeys wrote tone marks just for themselves, because they just couldn’t remember how to pronounce things correctly. But then one day, when Roland was reading something in church, one of his co-workers told the other people, “You know how he knows where to go up and down with his voice. That’s because he puts these little marks on top of the words.” It then became very clear that the tone marks needed to be written for everyone, because they had the same problem when reading. The Fumeys always knew that they needed to get church leaders from the different denomination involved in the translation process in order to gain a wide acceptance of the translated Scriptures. They now have three groups of church leaders from four denominations and six different Kuni villages involved as they read-through their revision work. It is very encouraging to see them engaging with the Word of God together, despite their cultural reluctance to work together. They have now revised 55% of the New Testament in this way. Every so often the Fumeys still hear “ts, ts, ts” from their Kuni friends as they hear something that they had never fully understood before.
For more information on this release, contact ThePNGexperience, PO BOX 413, Ukarumpa, EHP 444, Papua New Guinea Phone: 011 + 675 + 537-3544 ext. 4431 or Email: thePNGexperience@gmail.com “Tok Save” is the PNG “Tok Pisin” term for announcement or “For your information”. The English spelling conforms to Commonwealth English spelling.