Current Issues In Language Planning
Polity Editors: Robert B. Kaplan (University of Southern California), Richard B. Baldauf Jr. (University of Queensland) and Nkonko Kamwangamalu (Howard University)Bob and Dick are also editors of the book series Language Policy and Planning
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Volume: 6 Number: 2 Page: 239–250
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Vernacular Literacy in the Touo Language of the Solomon Islands
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Michael Dunn
Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University and Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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The Touo language is a non-Austronesian language spoken on Rendova Island (Western Province, Solomon Islands). First language speakers of Touo are typically multilingual, and are likely to speak other (Austronesian) vernaculars, as well as Solomon Island Pijin and English. There is no institutional support of literacy in Touo: schools function in English, and church-based support for vernacular literacy focuses on the major Austronesian languages of the local area. Touo vernacular literacy exists in a restricted niche of the linguistic ecology, where it is utilised for symbolic rather than communicative goals. Competing vernacular orthographic traditions complicate the situation further.
Keywords: vernacular literacy, Solomon Islands, Touo language, language planning, orthography
©2005 M. Dunn
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