Yeah…it may be in the video (still at the beginning right now) but I’d heard this is the only place in the world to independently invent agriculture, as in, without influence from Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, or civilizations that traded with them.
@@nerysghemor5781 There's many different places that probably developed agriculture independently. These range from definitely independent (Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica) to most likely independent (Papua, West Africa, Indus Valley, China) to we don't know for sure if there was no outside influence (Nile River, Ethiopia, Eastern United States, Andes).
You get 100 points for mentioning Amazonian forest gardens!! Also, the point you made of taro roots is also true of potatos and other tubers that grow in the Andean highlands. If you grow them at altitude the roots are forced to store more energy which means the roots and tubers get bigger than they would at lower altitudes. Great video as always!
So glad to see you back! Seriously, your lingustics channel, and others, have been a huge driving force to me soon graduating with an anthropology degree.
Nice to see you back. For the record, "banana" in classical Arabic is طَلْح (TalH) but this word is not in use in modern Arabic. In modern Arabic it's مَوْز (mawz) and in most dialects it changes to (móz). I think the word comes from East African languages. Some say (and I'm not sure about this info) that the word (banana) comes also from Arabic بَنان (banán) which is one word for "fingers", but I leave that to experts in etymology to check.
@@003mohamud it comes originally from tng, then it was borrowed by dravidian via austronesian, then sanskrit and finally middle persian and then arabic borrowed it.
It's amazing that you've talke d about ALL of the island if Papua and not only about the independent part like so many people unfortunately do. Because regardless of arbitrary colonial borders, all of this Melanesian island is incredibly diverse, with very original tribal traditions and languages
it must have been a humongous mission to write this video, geography now's video over new guinea even gave up naming the ethnicities of three quarters of that part of the island, too bad the algorithme only cares about channels with recent succeses.
Orang asli di suatu negeri sangat paham dengan negerinya, sangat tahu tentang tanahnya, dan sangat kenal dengan manusianya. Terkadang orang dari luar lupa dengan hal-hal itu.
i liked the hangul episode because i went thru the same process of creating a logical alphabet without knowing anything about korea,just as a childs game of writing in code
I spent the first 12 years of my life in a community of linguists in the Highlands of PNG and this video brought back memories and nostalgia, (as well as my complex feelings on that place) and taught me a lot of what I was too young to be interested in then. Thank you so much for making this video!
It's a sunny Saturday here in Port Moresby with the south easterly winds blowing in from the Coral Sea. Thank you for featuring one of the world's oldest continuous civilization. Mipla tok tenkyu tru long yu long mekim dispela vidio! 🤎 🇵🇬
it’s amazing, the correlation between linguistic diversity and biodiversity!! Indigenous peoples really do know how best to live on this planet in many, many cases. no one people are perfect of course, but I think of all the hundreds of cultures that thrive without relying on the destruction of others.
This brought me to mind why linguistic is so interesting. That's not only about languages, it's all about people. Thank you very much for making this video
I think it’s a bit deeper than that- their farms aren’t what most people around the world today think of as farms. our farms were once forests that were cut down, wetlands that were completely drained, or grasslands loosed and destroyed. their farms ARE the forests and the wetlands. they don’t destroy the ecosystems, they enhance them.
@@тито-к9в I don't know. I'm English, and there's _so_ much folklore about acorns that you've got to wonder whether our relationship with trees wasn't very different within the span of our stories, if not our histories. This “modern” view that distinguishes forests from the “made” landscape could be an aberration everywhere. Not that it's my field, just this excellent video making me think.
@@stephenspackman5573 your peoples' relationship with oaks is ancient and beautiful, you're right, but that aberration really is somewhat uniquely eurasian (from what I've found, anyway), because it kind of comes directly from mesopotamia, and then spread through that unique style of imperialism in concert with the abrahamic religions (especially christianity). most Indigenous people regardless of where they're from simply see the entire planet as home and as "made," just not the "made" that industrial peoples know. each Papuan nation is intimately shaping the landscape, they just do it with biodiversity (a recognition and profound love for our infinite living family) in mind, whereas our shaping is for humans only, and at times not even for all humans (like factories in poor neighborhoods making shit for the rich)
@тито I'm not in disagreement. I don't really like something like “Eurasian” here because it covers a lot of people I know nothing of, so I went with “‘modern’” in quotation marks of mild derision in the hope that people would intuit my meaning. But, anyway, yes-though if our species has not been responsible for other disasters in earlier times, I'll also be amazed. Not everyone is stupid, but nor does anyone have a true monopoly on being too “clever” for their own good.
Tá an áthas orm go bhfuil tú arais. This video is amazing, I've learnt so much. The agricultural history of New Guinea changes my conception of world history. I've just been reading up on the history of the island, I didnt even know where it was an hour ago. Thank you very much.
if you enjoy learning about these peoples and their genius ways of farming, i highly recommend Tending the Wild by M Kat Anderson, and incredible book about the lifeways of Indigenous peoples in what we know of now as California
Great intro bits to get people interested in Papua! Some cool Did you Knows would have been that some of the sultanates with the most clout in history (controlling the spice hehe) spoke a Papuan language: Tidore and Ternate. Also, that the language range of TNG extended beyond the main island but all the way to Timor and possibly further west to Komodo. Plus...winged beans. We need more winged beans.
So happy to see you back Josh! Congratulations on making the video, editing it, and releasing it! You earned it and every view you get! So excited for this! 🙏🥰❤️😃
@@NativLang Can you please please link the source of the song at 5:34 and 14:08?. I would very very much be grateful for that. Thank you so much in advance!
Very interesting stuff, thanks all the way from Milne Bay in PNG. We have so many varieties of banana here it's ridiculous. Most varieties are cultivated for food, but a few are cultivated or at least propagated for other purposes. Beads made from the seeds of wilder phenotypes are found in many local cultures, and one variety in the trobriand islands is cultivated for its large, thick leaves which are used to make grass skirts and are also used as currency.
Ooo just as I picked up new books for Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin! I love Papua and its people, and can't wait to spend time there learning and engaging with the peoples that call the island home! Love from Australia!
This was one of the most beautiful videos that I've watched is this God forsaken site. Thank you for talking about PNG with so much care, paying so much attention to the indigenous peoples not as "exotics", but as other voices that need to be heard. The indigenous moviments from PNG, Australia, Brazil & Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere in the world can teach us how to "buen vivir". We need that. So, thanks and congratulations. Take your time between videos. I'll wait paciently. Obrigado. :)
Yes! I've been hoping for a video on New Guinea for months now. I found it odd that you've not talked about it before because it's probably the most diverse (and maybe even oldest?) linguistic area in the world. So thank you!
The Northern Woodlands Tribes in the so-called United States also practiced a very complex and intense form of forest gardening/ agriculture that involved regular fires. Roger Williams was the only coloniser to ever assert that the Natives' twice-yearly fires were, in fact, for agricultural purposes.
Tending the Wild by M Kat Anderson is about the similar genius of Indigenous peoples in so-called California, such incredible ways of living. “Buen vivir,” truly.
Fascinating video, I'd love to see a video on the Dené-Yeniseian hypothesis, or at least the Ket language. It's fascinating, and Edward Vajda, the foremost professor on the matter seems to be quite keen on collaborating with UA-camrs
I agree on this. I forget if NativLang referenced this on their Siberian video, but for sure I would like to see an independent video on this too. There's so much human migration tangents to explore in the topic. The Tlingit being an ancient offshoot, the more recent but impressive dispersal into the Southwest, the Pacific enclaves, and even a possible connection with Mongol Turkic hordes recorded in ancient Chinese sources.
@@atlasaltera Turks and mongols aren’t closely related to ancient Siberian peoples. In fact the Turks originated as a humble agricultural people somewhere in like the Manchuria region of China or so, before being adopting a nomadic lifestyle and expanding to the great heights they achieved.
@@Bundpataka Hm, I'm not sure where you're coming from. What I am referring to is not origins, but at the time of ancient Chinese contact. At that time, Turkic, Mongolic, and Yeneisi-speaking peoples lived in close proximity around the Altai-Lake Baikal range and were all written about in Chinese accounts on frontier wars and border raids. But now that you brought up origins... lol. Yes, you are right that some of the latest findings suggest that Turkic peoples originated in the Manchurian region. Still, Manchuria's traditional inhabitants would have all been historically considered related to Siberian peoples. The Tungusic, Nivkh...
For people who failed to understand the taro part like me, basically it means that in high lands, individual taros grow slower but bigger compared to faster growth of smaller taros in the rainforest. In the end you get the approximate the same amount of taros by mass but you end up paying for more manpower in the rainforest due to more frequent harvesting and replanting.
My father was born in Port Moresby and my uncle and cousins still live in Mount Hagen, so this video is especially interesting to me (although all your videos are fascinating).
Austronesian are advanced people, build large ship, famous with outrigger boat n ship, rices, taro, buffalo, architecture(houses, palaces, temple), writing script, farmer, textiles, metalwork, built city n fort
@@maapauu4282 Austronesian like malay, Javanese, bugis, minangkabau, Balinese, makassarese. but not Papuan they naked, no metalwork, no big ship, no stone structure, no writing script, no architecture , no farming or rice Paddy field
@@maapauu4282 Mini Pompeii in java Island "situs liyangan" ancient city, big temple like Prambanan n Gunung Padang, in Micronesia famous with Nan madol non in Papua have all these
@@safuwanfauzi5014 But Buffalo are in North America... and Papuans have clothes, some metalwork, sailing ships, logographies, AND farming, in fact, half of this video is about Papuan farming techniques. The only reason that Papuan societies have limited tech compared to the continental societies and the bigger islands is the lack of recources.
As always, your videos seem to make the time just disappear, and your obvious enthusiasm draws me in, even beyond my own interest in linguistics. This is one of the (very)few channels, where I just click the moment I see a new video is up, and the only one where I know that I don't even have to watch the video, to know that I like it and click the appropriate thumbs-up button.
my deepest thanks. I´ve been trying to get good information on early agriculture in guinea since I saw a map showing it as a cradle of agriculture. But the way they did it is honestly more amazing than I ever could have imagined.
thinking about the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and their gorgeous food forests as were mentioned in the video just makes me think of how amazing it is, what humans can accomplish when we learn to live with all life on earth instead of in opposition to it.
I was just watching a bunch of your videos a couple weeks ago and hoping we’d get another one soon! Thanks for shining a spotlight on PNG and especially on the indigenous cultures that call the island home.
This is a beautiful and touching video, NativLang. I want to add, for all those interested in supporting the autonomy and lifeways of the Papuan peoples: the Indonesian government, which controls the western half of the island, is currently engaged in exploitative resource extraction there that is harming the environment, and is also encouraging the emigration of Javanese and other western Indonesians to western New Guinea as a form of settler-colonialism. This has led to clashes with West Papuan peoples, as well as police and military repression of the West Papuans, even leading to massacres in some cases. For anyone who wants to raise awareness and get more involved in stopping this attack on West Papuan sovereignty, please look for the Free West Papua Campaign on all social media platforms - you can get more information, see evidence of what's happening, get in touch with Papuan activists, and help support one of the oldest and most unique collection of societies on the planet. Thank you!
I agreed with your comment until the settler-colonialism part. The migration is actually two-way because (West) Papuans also benefit from "affirmation" programs in which they are brought to other Indonesian parts to study (free and they get incentive) and work with special enrolment or hiring methods. About the Free West Papua Movement, I don't have any opinion as the voice of Papuans are actually diverged. There's that movement but also there are also pro-Indonesian groups. We actually need to listen to them more, but sadly the Indonesian government suppresses most political coverages from Papua
As always, your content is amazing. I love that you explored the languages in conjunction with the agricultural and cultural (in general) context and colonization. Food for thought.
This channel is like a welcomed guest, someone you don't expect, but wish they came, never knowing when or if they will come, so when they do, you're overjoyed and wish to spend as much time with them as possible. The videos are a gift to us from a far away land, exotic, intriguing, thought provoking. It can be like a physical object, ranging from a trinket to a carpet big enough for the room. It can be a story or a song, you wish to listen to it again and again, look at the details, ask about specific parts and love hearing the person explaining it. Really, this channel is like that one dream topic you like and you're always excited to experience it. Sometimes you don't pay attention and miss it, but you can always come back to it. Thank you so much for creating this channel and such videos.
This was so worth the wait! Edit, because I commented before I finished watching: The commentary on colonization and its effects on the country was sobering, but well needed.
I’d say that we forget traditional techniques at our own peril. Someone like me, a Westerner with little knowledge or experience with the nature right around me, could be totally hosed in the event of a cataclysm. Someone on another video suggested we might need to deliberately teach our local agriculture, hunting, and survival techniques.
You made me fall in love with language. I'm happy to wait a year between videos when the quality is so constant, again and again. I love the thought and heart behind your curiosity, it encourages me to keep searching.
This may be your best episode yet and made me want to learn much more about Papuans, their history and their languages. Good on you for not just telling these fascinating linguistic stories but giving a glimpse into the reality of people that we(in the west) tend to "fictionalize" in our minds.
that "thanks for watching" and the quote before it were so soft yet profound. this is a beautiful direction to take the channel in. you really embody the root of what draws me to linguistics, history, and study of culture: compassion for and preservation of human diversity.
What a brilliant episode!! thanks so much for introducing me to the truly fascinating world of langriculture, and for teaching me about this beautiful and unique place!
A very meaningful video. Even when half of the island is part of my country, they have not been respected well. A lot of people voted for our president simply because he went there, as they thought their voices were marginal to the previous presidents. West Papuan people have been marginalized because of their darker skin color. Many Indonesian people may not even know that New Guinea has that many tribes and languages. You may have not thought that you did them justice, but you've pointed out so many important things that most people wouldn't have known about this island. So, thank you Josh.
@@bopndop2347Yes if western new guinea and all of inhabitants now. Some region are ofc more likely to vote for separation especially in highland area, others are more nationalist and will vote for Indonesia. This will never be revisited because of the chaos it will cause since of who can vote itself will already cause massive conflict. One example: there is a legal term oap (original papuan) to basically differentiate Indonesians from papua or from outside papua. But since most of tribes are patrilineal, matrilineal descendants are not considered oap (since they didn't carry the clan name). Some are more accepting of foreigners like marind consider anyone to be marind if they 'behave marind' evidently javanese who have been intermarried with them for centuries still called javanese by the highlanders, Koiwai in Kaimana have plenty of patrilineal foreign descents of arabs/moluccans. Similarly Biak with chinese descents (although they adopted matrilineal surnames). After the vote of independence, will the result even be accepted or just go back to allegations of cheating like the old vote. In my opinion it will just cause more conflicts and sparks new wars not just in New Guinea but also in Indonesia. Some tribes (or even clans inside tribes) are more likely to be separatists other nationalists. Like its already second or third generations already member of TPNPB or members of TNI. Like my village in Kaimana have plenty of trikora veterans family whose children joined TNI. Or the Baliem valley's Dani in the highland, plenty of them sent soldiers to be member in TNI, they were also formerly trikora veteran. Baliem valley became a tourist site precisely because it is safe and not so many separatists. Autonomy as envisioned is 2000s is the best solution. But ofc like IRA and its numerous splinter groups in Northern Ireland (honestly apt comparison with many similarty with northern ireland of uvf and ira), there will always be people that disagree.
Wholesome content! Thank you for introducing us to this rich island that people usually ignore. The last question made me shed a tear. Videos like this are what encourage me the most to pursue a linguistics degree! Tenkyu
I absolutely LOVE this, like the changes in style. The longer form, the cultural focus as a foil to language and the exploration of the introspective ideas that we can draw from it all is so amazing. Please keep this up, you're quickly becoming one of my favorite channels :D
Speaking of vegetative propagation, when we moved into a new house several years ago, there were several flowering bushes that my mother wanted to have cuttings of for her yard. The following is the method she had been taught to use to get the healthiest cuttings for transplanting. She would bend down a healthy looking lower branch of a bush, then put a large rock or brick on it to force it onto the ground with a pretty good sized amount of branch sticking out on the other side of the weight . She would sometimes add a little soil and fertilizer at the site to help it along as it put roots down into the ground under the rock. When it looked like it had a decent-sized little root system sent down, she would clip it off close to the rock on the parent bush side. Her catchphrase around our house became "put a rock on it". Any time it seemed the least bit appropriate, we would tease her with "Mom, look at this over here*. Should I put a rock on it?" *read: just about any old thing, not just plants
The interconnectedness of humanity and human history is much more complex and diverse than we fathom. It also goes back much further than agreed upon in contemporary academia.
Welcome back! I was wondering about you like last week lol. And thanks for this video. I was looking at my ancestry and I have connections to PNG (through my dads side). I’m from an outer island in Chuuk, Micronesia.
Oh my gosh!!! I audibly gasped seeing you put out a new video! After years of being a fan & lurker I’m finally achieving my dream and studying linguistics & East Asian studies in university. Big thanks to your amazing channel which has been getting endlessly recommended to my classmates/fellow ling nerds. Welcome back! ❤️
Great video! The linguistics of Papua New Guinea are one of those things you hear about pretty much all the time in university while studying linguistics. Tok Pisin is particularly popular because it's a great way for English speakers to get a better understanding of the process of new languages coming about through creolization, but I feel that often reduces the sheer linguistic diversity of the island to a statistic. And it's good to call out the quasi-fetishistic focus on the island as being somehow "untouched." Regarding the question about growth, I think that should ultimately be up to the people of Papua New Guinea to decide for themselves. Obviously, the real question here is not "what should they do" but "what should we do," because if the outside world wanted to, it could take over and force change on the island. It already has, to some extent, though it seems like there is more international attention on protecting its cultures now than there was in the past. But we have to make sure that in our efforts to prevent their exploitation, we must not attach value judgments to their choices. It may be that some of them will choose their traditional lifestyles, taking only what they want and can use from the rest of the world. It may also be that some of them will choose to leave traditional agricultural and cultural practices behind and adopt a more modern form of agriculture or a different lifestyle entirely. It's easy for us, in a knee jerk reaction to colonialism, to say that "modernization" is bad, and they should stay traditional because traditional is good, but that can lead us to denying their self-determination just as colonialism does.
So glad to see a new video from you. I've always been fascinated by New Guinea and wrote a paper about the Trans-New Guinea family for one of my courses.
"I'm gonna take a break from revising for my botany exam and watch a linguistics video." Ooooops. This hit all my sweet spots - thank you! I'm always excited to watch your videos, no matter how long it takes to make :)
What a beautiful video! I probably watch about 10 UA-cam videos a day, and this is the best I've seen in years. This is a beautiful way to address some of the most important questions facing our species today.
I have been waiting for the day NativLang covers the dinosaur island just above my country. Papua New Guinea is fascinating for its sheer density of languages!
Am trying to get answers from the times of coming out of motherland Africa to this beautiful island, from hunter gatherers,the stone, bronze and iron age,s to current, yr presentation so helped a bit, am PNGean and proud of it, keep us posted,
I so appreciate your channel! Linguistics is such a broad and complex field and I love how you break these complex concepts down into something easy to grasp for a casual reader while never losing focus of the fundamentally human nature of language use. Thank you 💜
YAY YOU'RE BACK! It's really good to see one of your videos again, I was missing them so much! Honestly, I think that they've helped me sort out what I wanna do with my life
Pardon my absence. I return with something meaningful.
and we will wait for whatever comes
you wouldn’t even need to upload a 19 minute video for us to forgive you, but you did
We missed you man, and we understand dont worry👍
It only mattered that you return, there is nothing that needs pardoning
I'm just happy you're back
It's finally here! Linguistic diversity, food archaeology, staple crops and ethnobotany, creolization, everything I could ask for.
Whew! And woohoo!
Yeah…it may be in the video (still at the beginning right now) but I’d heard this is the only place in the world to independently invent agriculture, as in, without influence from Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, or civilizations that traded with them.
Agreed. If this is the direction NativLang is taking, I am so excited. Protecting the world's biodiversity and its cultural diversity go hand in hand.
@@dkuchtamaine Yea, totally! That's why I love ethnobotany.
@@nerysghemor5781 There's many different places that probably developed agriculture independently. These range from definitely independent (Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica) to most likely independent (Papua, West Africa, Indus Valley, China) to we don't know for sure if there was no outside influence (Nile River, Ethiopia, Eastern United States, Andes).
You get 100 points for mentioning Amazonian forest gardens!! Also, the point you made of taro roots is also true of potatos and other tubers that grow in the Andean highlands. If you grow them at altitude the roots are forced to store more energy which means the roots and tubers get bigger than they would at lower altitudes. Great video as always!
Hehe nice to see you here too! 😉
So glad to see you back! Seriously, your lingustics channel, and others, have been a huge driving force to me soon graduating with an anthropology degree.
Congratulations!
Wait, he has other channels?
@@stojankovacic1524 Other UA-camrs, not his other UA-cam channels
@@stojankovacic1524 "and others" refers to other linguistic channels run by other people.
I agree, great to have Nativlang back.
Nice to see you back.
For the record, "banana" in classical Arabic is طَلْح (TalH) but this word is not in use in modern Arabic. In modern Arabic it's مَوْز (mawz) and in most dialects it changes to (móz). I think the word comes from East African languages. Some say (and I'm not sure about this info) that the word (banana) comes also from Arabic بَنان (banán) which is one word for "fingers", but I leave that to experts in etymology to check.
In Somali it's Moos. Ultimately from looking it up online I think it's probably Persian in origin.
@@003mohamud it comes originally from tng, then it was borrowed by dravidian via austronesian, then sanskrit and finally middle persian and then arabic borrowed it.
@@yappington3000 ah well as Socrates used to say, "You can't believe everything on the internet"
In urdu its like maus
In Persian it's moz too
It's amazing that you've talke d about ALL of the island if Papua and not only about the independent part like so many people unfortunately do. Because regardless of arbitrary colonial borders, all of this Melanesian island is incredibly diverse, with very original tribal traditions and languages
it must have been a humongous mission to write this video, geography now's video over new guinea even gave up naming the ethnicities of three quarters of that part of the island, too bad the algorithme only cares about channels with recent succeses.
absolutely. theres about 1,000 different ethnic groups in PNG each with their own languages
@@thvtsydneylyf3th077 and the dame amount in Western New Guinea, currently controlled by Indonesia
Orang asli di suatu negeri sangat paham dengan negerinya, sangat tahu tentang tanahnya, dan sangat kenal dengan manusianya.
Terkadang orang dari luar lupa dengan hal-hal itu.
Wantok here! Thanks for shining the light on our island, peoples, and history 🥰
Holy crap! This isn't just your longest video in years.
Unless I overlooked something, this is your second longest video ever after Thoth's Pill.
Someone's been watching for a while ~ and your count matches mine!
@@NativLang Yup. I've been watching since your first video on Mongolian.
i liked the hangul episode because i went thru the same process of creating a logical alphabet without knowing anything about korea,just as a childs game of writing in code
I spent the first 12 years of my life in a community of linguists in the Highlands of PNG and this video brought back memories and nostalgia, (as well as my complex feelings on that place) and taught me a lot of what I was too young to be interested in then. Thank you so much for making this video!
Do you miss it?
Not really
It's a sunny Saturday here in Port Moresby with the south easterly winds blowing in from the Coral Sea. Thank you for featuring one of the world's oldest continuous civilization. Mipla tok tenkyu tru long yu long mekim dispela vidio! 🤎 🇵🇬
I think it’s really profound how you placed the people in their world by combining linguistics with ecology. Bravo!
Every time I run across your channel I wish you would post more. There is a gentleness and openness to your stile of story telling that is rare.
Unfortunately I'm the only one in my circle of friends and family who really digs linguistics so these videos are super important to me. Thank you!
Friggin same lol
Yes same!
As a botanist I've always wanted to go to New Guinea. It really is one of the top global hotspots for plant diversity.
it’s amazing, the correlation between linguistic diversity and biodiversity!! Indigenous peoples really do know how best to live on this planet in many, many cases. no one people are perfect of course, but I think of all the hundreds of cultures that thrive without relying on the destruction of others.
for sure, theres this huge extinct volcano called Mount Bosavi in Niu Gini where they're found a bunch of new species of plants and animals
This brought me to mind why linguistic is so interesting. That's not only about languages, it's all about people. Thank you very much for making this video
I am SO respectful of the pov you've shared. "No farmers. No food."
Well, there is zero conflict between a monetary system, schools, electricity, science, roads, etc. and farmers. So the Papuans can have all of it.
I think it’s a bit deeper than that- their farms aren’t what most people around the world today think of as farms. our farms were once forests that were cut down, wetlands that were completely drained, or grasslands loosed and destroyed. their farms ARE the forests and the wetlands. they don’t destroy the ecosystems, they enhance them.
@@тито-к9в I don't know. I'm English, and there's _so_ much folklore about acorns that you've got to wonder whether our relationship with trees wasn't very different within the span of our stories, if not our histories. This “modern” view that distinguishes forests from the “made” landscape could be an aberration everywhere. Not that it's my field, just this excellent video making me think.
@@stephenspackman5573 your peoples' relationship with oaks is ancient and beautiful, you're right, but that aberration really is somewhat uniquely eurasian (from what I've found, anyway), because it kind of comes directly from mesopotamia, and then spread through that unique style of imperialism in concert with the abrahamic religions (especially christianity). most Indigenous people regardless of where they're from simply see the entire planet as home and as "made," just not the "made" that industrial peoples know. each Papuan nation is intimately shaping the landscape, they just do it with biodiversity (a recognition and profound love for our infinite living family) in mind, whereas our shaping is for humans only, and at times not even for all humans (like factories in poor neighborhoods making shit for the rich)
@тито I'm not in disagreement. I don't really like something like “Eurasian” here because it covers a lot of people I know nothing of, so I went with “‘modern’” in quotation marks of mild derision in the hope that people would intuit my meaning. But, anyway, yes-though if our species has not been responsible for other disasters in earlier times, I'll also be amazed. Not everyone is stupid, but nor does anyone have a true monopoly on being too “clever” for their own good.
Tá an áthas orm go bhfuil tú arais. This video is amazing, I've learnt so much. The agricultural history of New Guinea changes my conception of world history. I've just been reading up on the history of the island, I didnt even know where it was an hour ago. Thank you very much.
if you enjoy learning about these peoples and their genius ways of farming, i highly recommend Tending the Wild by M Kat Anderson, and incredible book about the lifeways of Indigenous peoples in what we know of now as California
@@тито-к9в thanks
the taro example is a fantastic explanation of socially necessary labor-time
Saluton 👀
belegan profilbildon vi havas ;)
@@frechjo uuu, esperanta konversacio ĉi tie
Great intro bits to get people interested in Papua! Some cool Did you Knows would have been that some of the sultanates with the most clout in history (controlling the spice hehe) spoke a Papuan language: Tidore and Ternate. Also, that the language range of TNG extended beyond the main island but all the way to Timor and possibly further west to Komodo. Plus...winged beans. We need more winged beans.
Hey! Funny seeing you here!
The word banana comes from the mande language, in west Africa, it was later popularized by the Portuguese and the Spanish in the late 16th century.
Didn't know that about the spice sultanates, thanks!
@@imokin86 You're welcome! You might get sucked into a long Wiki-rabbit hole haha
Is Ternate Tidore area using Papuan language as lingua franca?
Because in western SEA side we use Melayu Pasar
So happy to see you back Josh! Congratulations on making the video, editing it, and releasing it! You earned it and every view you get! So excited for this! 🙏🥰❤️😃
It took lots of work 💦so thanks for sticking around to watch 😊 ❤
@@NativLang You have built a better mousetrap! Lol. Thank you!
@@NativLang Can you please please link the source of the song at 5:34 and 14:08?.
I would very very much be grateful for that.
Thank you so much in advance!
Very interesting stuff, thanks all the way from Milne Bay in PNG. We have so many varieties of banana here it's ridiculous. Most varieties are cultivated for food, but a few are cultivated or at least propagated for other purposes. Beads made from the seeds of wilder phenotypes are found in many local cultures, and one variety in the trobriand islands is cultivated for its large, thick leaves which are used to make grass skirts and are also used as currency.
This is a fascinating video. Papua New Guinea is such an underrated part of the world, and this video makes it even cooler. Thanks for sharing
Ooo just as I picked up new books for Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin! I love Papua and its people, and can't wait to spend time there learning and engaging with the peoples that call the island home! Love from Australia!
This is genuinely one of the best channels on UA-cam that I know of. These videos are practically art! Keep up the amazing work!
This was one of the most beautiful videos that I've watched is this God forsaken site. Thank you for talking about PNG with so much care, paying so much attention to the indigenous peoples not as "exotics", but as other voices that need to be heard. The indigenous moviments from PNG, Australia, Brazil & Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere in the world can teach us how to "buen vivir". We need that. So, thanks and congratulations. Take your time between videos. I'll wait paciently. Obrigado. :)
Glad to have you back NativLang!
Yes! I've been hoping for a video on New Guinea for months now. I found it odd that you've not talked about it before because it's probably the most diverse (and maybe even oldest?) linguistic area in the world. So thank you!
Glad to see the channel active again. I had almost given up on thinking it would come back
I CLICKED RIGHT AWAY WHEN I SAW THE NOTIFICATION
it’s always a good day when nativlang uploads:)
The Northern Woodlands Tribes in the so-called United States also practiced a very complex and intense form of forest gardening/ agriculture that involved regular fires. Roger Williams was the only coloniser to ever assert that the Natives' twice-yearly fires were, in fact, for agricultural purposes.
It's not the "so called" United States. It's the United States.
@@qwertywillbecool literally the same thing
Tending the Wild by M Kat Anderson is about the similar genius of Indigenous peoples in so-called California, such incredible ways of living. “Buen vivir,” truly.
@@тито-к9в Can you please link the video or the source here? Thank you so much!
@@тито-к9в Can you also link a source to the song at 5:34 and 14:08? Thanks again!
Fascinating video, I'd love to see a video on the Dené-Yeniseian hypothesis, or at least the Ket language. It's fascinating, and Edward Vajda, the foremost professor on the matter seems to be quite keen on collaborating with UA-camrs
I agree on this. I forget if NativLang referenced this on their Siberian video, but for sure I would like to see an independent video on this too. There's so much human migration tangents to explore in the topic. The Tlingit being an ancient offshoot, the more recent but impressive dispersal into the Southwest, the Pacific enclaves, and even a possible connection with Mongol Turkic hordes recorded in ancient Chinese sources.
@@atlasaltera Turks and mongols aren’t closely related to ancient Siberian peoples. In fact the Turks originated as a humble agricultural people somewhere in like the Manchuria region of China or so, before being adopting a nomadic lifestyle and expanding to the great heights they achieved.
@@Bundpataka Hm, I'm not sure where you're coming from. What I am referring to is not origins, but at the time of ancient Chinese contact. At that time, Turkic, Mongolic, and Yeneisi-speaking peoples lived in close proximity around the Altai-Lake Baikal range and were all written about in Chinese accounts on frontier wars and border raids.
But now that you brought up origins... lol. Yes, you are right that some of the latest findings suggest that Turkic peoples originated in the Manchurian region. Still, Manchuria's traditional inhabitants would have all been historically considered related to Siberian peoples. The Tungusic, Nivkh...
Welcome back, sir. Things have been quite…rowdy online in your absence.
Hoping that you one day cover my people’s native language soon - Chamorro.
Really glad to see this channel is still active! Thank you for such an interesting episode too!
This video deserves so many more views. I've watched it a couple of times already
For people who failed to understand the taro part like me, basically it means that in high lands, individual taros grow slower but bigger compared to faster growth of smaller taros in the rainforest. In the end you get the approximate the same amount of taros by mass but you end up paying for more manpower in the rainforest due to more frequent harvesting and replanting.
My father was born in Port Moresby and my uncle and cousins still live in Mount Hagen, so this video is especially interesting to me (although all your videos are fascinating).
Austronesian are advanced people, build large ship, famous with outrigger boat n ship, rices, taro, buffalo, architecture(houses, palaces, temple), writing script, farmer, textiles, metalwork, built city n fort
@@safuwanfauzi5014 Buffalo? Metalwork? Could you please elaborate?
@@maapauu4282 Austronesian like malay, Javanese, bugis, minangkabau, Balinese, makassarese. but not Papuan they naked, no metalwork, no big ship, no stone structure, no writing script, no architecture , no farming or rice Paddy field
@@maapauu4282 Mini Pompeii in java Island "situs liyangan" ancient city, big temple like Prambanan n Gunung Padang, in Micronesia famous with Nan madol non in Papua have all these
@@safuwanfauzi5014 But Buffalo are in North America... and Papuans have clothes, some metalwork, sailing ships, logographies, AND farming, in fact, half of this video is about Papuan farming techniques.
The only reason that Papuan societies have limited tech compared to the continental societies and the bigger islands is the lack of recources.
The Return of the King!!!
Was just rewatching your French video a couple days ago and was wondering when you would post again! Very happy it happened so soon!
As always, your videos seem to make the time just disappear, and your obvious enthusiasm draws me in, even beyond my own interest in linguistics.
This is one of the (very)few channels, where I just click the moment I see a new video is up, and the only one where I know that I don't even have to watch the video, to know that I like it and click the appropriate thumbs-up button.
my deepest thanks. I´ve been trying to get good information on early agriculture in guinea since I saw a map showing it as a cradle of agriculture. But the way they did it is honestly more amazing than I ever could have imagined.
thinking about the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and their gorgeous food forests as were mentioned in the video just makes me think of how amazing it is, what humans can accomplish when we learn to live with all life on earth instead of in opposition to it.
This is the most wholesome UA-cam channel I’ve run across! Thanks so much for the quality content!
I was just watching a bunch of your videos a couple weeks ago and hoping we’d get another one soon! Thanks for shining a spotlight on PNG and especially on the indigenous cultures that call the island home.
“Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” - Cree People
What profound wisdom! Love to the ancestors ❤
If you're taking suggestions, I'd like to see a video on the Eskaleut languages.
Had to read the notification again because I couldn't believe it. Happy to have you back!
This is a beautiful and touching video, NativLang. I want to add, for all those interested in supporting the autonomy and lifeways of the Papuan peoples: the Indonesian government, which controls the western half of the island, is currently engaged in exploitative resource extraction there that is harming the environment, and is also encouraging the emigration of Javanese and other western Indonesians to western New Guinea as a form of settler-colonialism. This has led to clashes with West Papuan peoples, as well as police and military repression of the West Papuans, even leading to massacres in some cases. For anyone who wants to raise awareness and get more involved in stopping this attack on West Papuan sovereignty, please look for the Free West Papua Campaign on all social media platforms - you can get more information, see evidence of what's happening, get in touch with Papuan activists, and help support one of the oldest and most unique collection of societies on the planet. Thank you!
I agreed with your comment until the settler-colonialism part. The migration is actually two-way because (West) Papuans also benefit from "affirmation" programs in which they are brought to other Indonesian parts to study (free and they get incentive) and work with special enrolment or hiring methods.
About the Free West Papua Movement, I don't have any opinion as the voice of Papuans are actually diverged. There's that movement but also there are also pro-Indonesian groups. We actually need to listen to them more, but sadly the Indonesian government suppresses most political coverages from Papua
@@danan2721 free west papua
Best narrator on all of YT in my opinion and… I watch a lot of YT 😄
As always, your content is amazing. I love that you explored the languages in conjunction with the agricultural and cultural (in general) context and colonization.
Food for thought.
India: "You know, my people speak to each other without understanding."
New Guinea: "I know, right?"
This channel is like a welcomed guest, someone you don't expect, but wish they came, never knowing when or if they will come, so when they do, you're overjoyed and wish to spend as much time with them as possible.
The videos are a gift to us from a far away land, exotic, intriguing, thought provoking. It can be like a physical object, ranging from a trinket to a carpet big enough for the room. It can be a story or a song, you wish to listen to it again and again, look at the details, ask about specific parts and love hearing the person explaining it.
Really, this channel is like that one dream topic you like and you're always excited to experience it.
Sometimes you don't pay attention and miss it, but you can always come back to it.
Thank you so much for creating this channel and such videos.
I get goosebumps when watching this video. Thanks Nativlang, for hitting us with masterpieces every now and then.
Thank you for crediting Indigenous people.
Listen, if you ever feel the urgent need to make an 8 hour video about this topic, PLEASE do so I'd drop everything to watch that
this channel is... just absolutely phenomenal
This was so worth the wait!
Edit, because I commented before I finished watching: The commentary on colonization and its effects on the country was sobering, but well needed.
Μπράβο φίλε μου. Με κάθε βίντεο, σε βλέπω να καλυτερεύεις κι να βελτιώνεις στην τέχνη σου.
Ευχαριστώ πάρα πολύ.
@@NativLang Sorry, can I ask how to search for that song on the video?
είναι όντως καταπληκτικό κανάλι!
This is all Greek to me.
@@Ggdivhjkjl it's all chinese to me
I’d say that we forget traditional techniques at our own peril. Someone like me, a Westerner with little knowledge or experience with the nature right around me, could be totally hosed in the event of a cataclysm. Someone on another video suggested we might need to deliberately teach our local agriculture, hunting, and survival techniques.
You made me fall in love with language. I'm happy to wait a year between videos when the quality is so constant, again and again. I love the thought and heart behind your curiosity, it encourages me to keep searching.
This may be your best episode yet and made me want to learn much more about Papuans, their history and their languages. Good on you for not just telling these fascinating linguistic stories but giving a glimpse into the reality of people that we(in the west) tend to "fictionalize" in our minds.
that "thanks for watching" and the quote before it were so soft yet profound. this is a beautiful direction to take the channel in. you really embody the root of what draws me to linguistics, history, and study of culture: compassion for and preservation of human diversity.
¡Me alegra mucho ver un video tuyo de vuelta! Es siempre un gusto verlos.
Brilliant video! Love my island home🇵🇬
I missed you so much, Nativlang! You are by far, the best language channel in UA-cam
What a brilliant episode!! thanks so much for introducing me to the truly fascinating world of langriculture, and for teaching me about this beautiful and unique place!
I’m absolutely obsessed with the way you explain things. Your words are somehow both poetic and visual, and make complex topics so easy to understand!
A very meaningful video. Even when half of the island is part of my country, they have not been respected well. A lot of people voted for our president simply because he went there, as they thought their voices were marginal to the previous presidents. West Papuan people have been marginalized because of their darker skin color. Many Indonesian people may not even know that New Guinea has that many tribes and languages.
You may have not thought that you did them justice, but you've pointed out so many important things that most people wouldn't have known about this island. So, thank you Josh.
Do you think if West Papuan's got a vote for Independence, they would honestly stay with Indonesia? What Joko has done for WP is great but be honest.
@@bopndop2347Yes if western new guinea and all of inhabitants now. Some region are ofc more likely to vote for separation especially in highland area, others are more nationalist and will vote for Indonesia.
This will never be revisited because of the chaos it will cause since of who can vote itself will already cause massive conflict. One example: there is a legal term oap (original papuan) to basically differentiate Indonesians from papua or from outside papua. But since most of tribes are patrilineal, matrilineal descendants are not considered oap (since they didn't carry the clan name). Some are more accepting of foreigners like marind consider anyone to be marind if they 'behave marind' evidently javanese who have been intermarried with them for centuries still called javanese by the highlanders, Koiwai in Kaimana have plenty of patrilineal foreign descents of arabs/moluccans. Similarly Biak with chinese descents (although they adopted matrilineal surnames). After the vote of independence, will the result even be accepted or just go back to allegations of cheating like the old vote. In my opinion it will just cause more conflicts and sparks new wars not just in New Guinea but also in Indonesia.
Some tribes (or even clans inside tribes) are more likely to be separatists other nationalists. Like its already second or third generations already member of TPNPB or members of TNI. Like my village in Kaimana have plenty of trikora veterans family whose children joined TNI. Or the Baliem valley's Dani in the highland, plenty of them sent soldiers to be member in TNI, they were also formerly trikora veteran. Baliem valley became a tourist site precisely because it is safe and not so many separatists.
Autonomy as envisioned is 2000s is the best solution. But ofc like IRA and its numerous splinter groups in Northern Ireland (honestly apt comparison with many similarty with northern ireland of uvf and ira), there will always be people that disagree.
Wholesome content! Thank you for introducing us to this rich island that people usually ignore. The last question made me shed a tear. Videos like this are what encourage me the most to pursue a linguistics degree! Tenkyu
I absolutely LOVE this, like the changes in style. The longer form, the cultural focus as a foil to language and the exploration of the introspective ideas that we can draw from it all is so amazing. Please keep this up, you're quickly becoming one of my favorite channels :D
These videos really make you think and I'm here for it.
Speaking of vegetative propagation, when we moved into a new house several years ago, there were several flowering bushes that my mother wanted to have cuttings of for her yard. The following is the method she had been taught to use to get the healthiest cuttings for transplanting. She would bend down a healthy looking lower branch of a bush, then put a large rock or brick on it to force it onto the ground with a pretty good sized amount of branch sticking out on the other side of the weight . She would sometimes add a little soil and fertilizer at the site to help it along as it put roots down into the ground under the rock. When it looked like it had a decent-sized little root system sent down, she would clip it off close to the rock on the parent bush side.
Her catchphrase around our house became "put a rock on it". Any time it seemed the least bit appropriate, we would tease her with "Mom, look at this over here*. Should I put a rock on it?"
*read: just about any old thing, not just plants
I'm so glad for another video. This was a radical departure and I really enjoyed it. Thank you
He rises from the dead!! Welcome back!! Great video as always 🌟
9 months later, you made this baby. We're proud of you
loved this one. love from Zimbabwe
Thank you! This adds some wonderful questions to my research into oral traditions and their effects on modern culture.
The interconnectedness of humanity and human history is much more complex and diverse than we fathom. It also goes back much further than agreed upon in contemporary academia.
This is one of only two channels I support on Patreon. The videos have been very far between lately, but they’re always worth the wait
I appreciate so much you making videos like this to bring focus on voices that aren't heard enough.
Welcome back! I was wondering about you like last week lol. And thanks for this video. I was looking at my ancestry and I have connections to PNG (through my dads side). I’m from an outer island in Chuuk, Micronesia.
So happy you're still uploading!
18 minutes of a NativLang video? Is this heaven?
Oh my gosh!!! I audibly gasped seeing you put out a new video! After years of being a fan & lurker I’m finally achieving my dream and studying linguistics & East Asian studies in university. Big thanks to your amazing channel which has been getting endlessly recommended to my classmates/fellow ling nerds. Welcome back! ❤️
Great video! The linguistics of Papua New Guinea are one of those things you hear about pretty much all the time in university while studying linguistics. Tok Pisin is particularly popular because it's a great way for English speakers to get a better understanding of the process of new languages coming about through creolization, but I feel that often reduces the sheer linguistic diversity of the island to a statistic. And it's good to call out the quasi-fetishistic focus on the island as being somehow "untouched."
Regarding the question about growth, I think that should ultimately be up to the people of Papua New Guinea to decide for themselves. Obviously, the real question here is not "what should they do" but "what should we do," because if the outside world wanted to, it could take over and force change on the island. It already has, to some extent, though it seems like there is more international attention on protecting its cultures now than there was in the past. But we have to make sure that in our efforts to prevent their exploitation, we must not attach value judgments to their choices. It may be that some of them will choose their traditional lifestyles, taking only what they want and can use from the rest of the world. It may also be that some of them will choose to leave traditional agricultural and cultural practices behind and adopt a more modern form of agriculture or a different lifestyle entirely. It's easy for us, in a knee jerk reaction to colonialism, to say that "modernization" is bad, and they should stay traditional because traditional is good, but that can lead us to denying their self-determination just as colonialism does.
So glad to see a new video from you. I've always been fascinated by New Guinea and wrote a paper about the Trans-New Guinea family for one of my courses.
Omg my recent hyperfocus is Papua New Guinea and its diverse cultures and languages and then I see your new video! Heaven.
"I'm gonna take a break from revising for my botany exam and watch a linguistics video." Ooooops. This hit all my sweet spots - thank you! I'm always excited to watch your videos, no matter how long it takes to make :)
What a beautiful video! I probably watch about 10 UA-cam videos a day, and this is the best I've seen in years. This is a beautiful way to address some of the most important questions facing our species today.
This is your very best video, yet. Thank you so much for this.
This video was so beautiful and well constructed, it has such a great message that humanity needs to hear
I have been waiting for the day NativLang covers the dinosaur island just above my country. Papua New Guinea is fascinating for its sheer density of languages!
I loved this episode. Getting to know the people not just the language
NativLang, I applaud your conscientious efforts to separate your craft from colonity! Peace!
A wonderful video, that entertains you, educates you, and then, it leaves you in your thoughts.
At least that's what it did for me.
i was just missing you earlier this week!! it’s so nice to see your content again :D
Am trying to get answers from the times of coming out of motherland Africa to this beautiful island, from hunter gatherers,the stone, bronze and iron age,s to current, yr presentation so helped a bit, am PNGean and proud of it, keep us posted,
I so appreciate your channel! Linguistics is such a broad and complex field and I love how you break these complex concepts down into something easy to grasp for a casual reader while never losing focus of the fundamentally human nature of language use. Thank you 💜
He's back and better than ever! Love you Lang!!
YAY YOU'RE BACK! It's really good to see one of your videos again, I was missing them so much! Honestly, I think that they've helped me sort out what I wanna do with my life
May the people of New Guinea be free from outside oppression from Sorong to Samarai.
"Eawedo" (greetings/ thanks) from Samarai Island