Seimat love poem
Tehu gala
Hosaum leili tehu galas
Se tapeini soliai teik poem tetak
Tuwahe kosea, se ien e i susuna
I e tapeinan tetak "Nga waheni wanen o"
→ French poem ←
Seimat language
My little poem is here translated into Seimat (Ninigo), the language of perhaps 1300 people who live in the Ninigo Islands, a group of 31 islands (Mal, Liot, Patexux, Awin, Lau, Amix, Pihon), and Anchorite, in Papua New Guinea.
The Ninigo Islands are located in the Bismarck Archipelago, in the northwest of Manus Island. They are part of the Manus province.
Seimat is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Western Admiralty group of languages. The dialect variation is very low, even between the westernmost and easternmost islands.
Usually, the Seimat society, in addition to Seimat, speaks Pidgin, which sometimes becomes the main language, but today elementary schools teach literacy in Seimat.
On the Ninigo Islands, people live from fishing (fish, sea cucumbers), some livestock farming (pigs, poultry) and agriculture (cassava, sugar cane, taro, coconut, bananas, papayas).
In this patrilineal society, men own the land... land, which they often reach in outrigger canoes, to cultivate it.
Nyindrou