Northwest Solomonic

Simbo dictionary

How to cite

Palmer, William D. 2007. Simbo dictionary. Version 3.0. University of Surrey.

Access

View the Simbo dictionary (Version 3.0).

Alphabetic order

Items in the dictionary are listed in alphabetic order in the local orthography. The order is:

a b d e g(γ) h i j(dž) k l m n/n(ŋ)/ñ o p q(^ŋg) r s t u v(ß) y

The palatal affricate is in free allophonic variantion with the voiced palatal fricative /ž/, often written locally as z.

Note: all voiced plosives and the affricate are prenasalised. In the Broad Phonetic Form column prenasalisation is represented by the relevant nasal, but for the moment it is not superscript.

Sources

This dictionary is compiled from secondary sources, primary lexical and textual data collected in the field by Dr Christine Dureau in the early 1990s, and a small amount of primary data collected in the field by Bill Palmer in 1993. The seconary material varies widely in quality and quantity, and comprised of:

Early, Robert (1982) Language use and intelligibility in the central islands of Western Province. Honiara: Solomon Islands Translation Advisory Group. [Contains a short Simbo wordlist.]

Grace, George (1955) Linguistic questionnaire. August 1955. Madegugusu, Simbo. Respondent Misake Nuti. [Unpublished data sheets.]

Guppy, Henry B. (1887) The Solomon Islands and their natives. London: Sonnenschein & Co. [Contains a short list of Simbo terms.]

Hocart, Arthur M. (1922) 'Cult of the dead in Eddystone of the Solomon Islands.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 52:71-112, 259-305. [Anthropological paper containing numerous words and some short texts collected in 1908.]

Hocart, Arthur M. (1925) 'Medicine and Witchcraft in Eddystone of the Solomons.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 55:229-270. [Anthropological paper containing numerous words and some short texts collected in 1908.]

Hocart, Arthur M. (1931) 'Warfare in Eddystone of the Solomon Island.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 61:301-324. [Anthropological paper containing numerous words and some short texts collected in 1908.]

Hocart, Arthur M. (1937) 'Fishing in Eddystone Island.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 67:33-41. [Anthropological paper containing numerous words and some short texts collected in 1908.]

Rivers, W.H.R. (1914) The history of Melanesian society. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp252-253, p396. [Contains a short list of Simbo terms.]

Ray, Sidney H. (1926) A comparative study of the Melanesian island languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Briefly describes a few key features of the grammar of Simbo.]

Tryon, Darrell, T & Brian D. Hackman (1983) Solomon Islands languages: an internal classification. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [Contains a word list of about 380 lexical items in Simbo.]

The Hocart articles can be viewed via JSTOR.

Document history

Version 3.0 (2007) Completely reformatted, and checked and revised to incorporate additions and amendments from my own primary data.

Version 2.0 (2004) Reformatting of 1998 for web delivery.

Version 1.1 (1998) Revision of 1993 incorporating a small amount of additional secondary material.

Version 1.0 (1993) Original version compiled from secondary sources and Dr Dureau's notes.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Lawrence Hickie for providing me with Simbo data in the field; to Christine Dureau for making her unpublished materials available to me; and to Claire Turner for checking my field materials against version 2 of the dictionary.