Nakanai love poem
La halumu oilo la galasi
La poem taku ale a isa ale marasa sesele
Alamoli, igigo age kokovu
Ale la tapasila "eiau masaga emei"!
Perhaps, there is no word for poem, so Jane has let the english word!

→ Poem the mirror ←
The nakanai
Here the tanslation of my poem into nakanai (Nakonai) a papuan language; exactly into Bileki, one of the nakanai dialects. The others are: Vere, Ubae, Losa, Maututu. There is perhaps 15,000 people who speak one of these dialects. Nakanai is the austronesian malayo polynesian language of Muku (Muu) populations. One find the Bileki dialect in Hoskins area, West New Britain Province, around Nakanai Mountains, in Papua New-Guinea.
One way of overcoming the problems of communication has been a traditionally high rate of multilinguism. It is not unusual for people to have a working knowledge of some different languages. Since many languages groups only have a few hundred speakers, it is almost impossible for individuals to find marriage partners from within their own group. As a result, most children have parents who speak differents languages, and as they grown up they may acquire more in communication with relatives from other groups. Adults may have widespread trading networks and acquire at least a working knowledge of their trading partner's languages. In some cases simplified trade languages emerged, such as a simplified Motu in the Gulf of Papua.
New Britain
http://love.poem.free.fr/papuan-poems/nakanai-poem.html