The Naasioi Otomaung Alphabet of Bougainville: A Preliminary Sketch From Afar

Abstract

<p>The Naasioi Otomaung alphabet first came to light during the Bougainville Crisis of 1988–1998. Created by the Naasioi-speaking leader of a politico-religious movement in Kieta district, its emergence follows the pattern of numerous other scripts of Asia and the Pacific that have developed in recent times in the context of anti-colonial confrontations [kelly2016a,kelly2018a]. This paper provides the first ever public report on the form, structure and context of the script, early efforts at documentation, and its prospects for future development. The script exhibits a formal influence from cursivised Roman while its inventory of letters presents as a cypher for the English alphabet, including letters such as <x> and <z> that are not present in standard Naasioi orthographies [hurd1966a]. From the perspective of its users, however, the alphabet is designed to universally encode any language: the word <i>otomaung</i> is in fact a neologism roughly meaning 'able to express anything'. The term is also polysemous, variously denoting the letter, as well as the religious community in which the alphabet was created. The forms of the letters, meanwhile, are said to have been inspired by ceremonial scarring, a practice that is now rare. Reproducing these forms in writing is thus seen as an act of cultural preservation by other means. Although at one time the script became part of a local school curriculum, literacy is now limited to a small number of individuals. Systematic documentation and description of Naasioi Otomaung has suffered various setbacks, from political disruptions to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, most of the documentation to date has been carried out by post, email, and social media correspondence. Despite the obvious limitations and inefficiencies of these channels, 'virtual' fieldwork has been unexpectedly productive, resulting in an accurate record of the script, preliminary information about its historical and ethnographic circumstances and the development of a new font. With Bougainville's recent advances towards political independence, the Otomaung Naasioi alphabet may soon rise to greater prominence.</p>