Category Archives: Micronesia

by | 24 April 2023 · 10:08 pm

Early Palauan Enka Composer

Here’s another excerpt from Jim Geselbracht’s Palauan music blog, about one of the early Palauan enka: Wakai Inochi (young life) by Tekereng Sylvester.

Today’s song — Wakai Inochi [young life] — is another song of heartbreak, with words mostly in Japanese.  The song was composed by Tekereng according to Diane’s lyric collection [1].  This is possibly Tekereng Sylvester, who was born in 1920 in Yap, moved to Palau at age 5, then Indonesia at age 14 to further his education.  He then went to Japan in 1942 and worked as a translator for Japanese and Indonesian soldiers during World War II.  He returned to Palau in 1953 to work as a telephone operator and then moved again to Saipan in 1966, where he spent the rest of his life [2], passing at the age of 95 in October, 2015 [3].  I don’t know the year that this song was composed, but with his life’s story, it would make sense that he was the Tekereng who composed this song.

The earliest recording of this song I have is from the Ngerel Belau [Voice of Palau] Radio Tapes, recorded in the 1960s, sung by Kui-Roy Arurang and backed up by the Friday Night Club.  The recording is good and Kui-Roy’s voice is very strong.  The tape box was labeled with the title “Ng Kol Mo Oingerang,” a line which comes from the last verse of the song.  Diane’s lyric collection [1] listed the title as “Wakai Inochi”, as did Gailliard Kladikm’s tape.  And since there is another, different, song with the title “Ng Kol Mo Oingerang,”, we’ll use “Wakai Inochi” for this one.

The rough transcriptions of the Japanese amid the Palauan lyrics (which I’ve italicized) give a feel for the heavier mix of Japanese lyrics in the 1930s and 1940s. Below I’ve added best-guess glosses in square brackets to the beginning and end of the lyrics (and attempted light corrections to the Japanese transcriptions). My glosses of the Palauan are also rough.

Wakai inochi [t]o mangokoro wa [若い命と真心は]
Ng diak kubes era [it not I-forget ART] kimi no omokange yo [君の面影よ] …

A young life and a true heart
I can’t forget you in my memory …

Natsukasii omoide, kazukazu to [懐かしい思い出数々と]
Kanasii kago no tori no you ni [悲しい籠の鳥のように]
Tsubasa orarete [翼折られて], ng ko el mo oingerang [it will be when?]
A cheldedechad [ART story-our(INCL)]

Dear memories, they are many
Like a sad bird trapped in its cage
With a broken wing. When will it be,
our story?

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Filed under Japan, language, Micronesia, migration, music

by | 21 April 2023 · 6:34 pm

Reviving Palauan Musical Traditions

At points during its period of Japanese rule (roughly 1915-1945), Palau had more Japanese colonists than native Palauans, who incorporated many Japanese words, names, and songs into their local traditions. Even after the war, Palau continued to be a repository of old-style Japanese enka musicians, who retained many Japanese evocative phrases in their Palauan renditions. Lots of Palauans also mastered the mandolin as well as the guitar.

From Ouchacha: Musings on Palauan cha-cha and other musical forms:

In March of 2018, my friend Tony Phillips and I went to Palau to perform some of the old songs in the 1960s String Band style as “Ngirchoureng“, meet and play with some of the musicians and composers, and talk to folks about how much we love this music.  After returning to California, we spent some time recording the Palauan songs that we had worked up for our trip. Just like our performances at the Night Market and Museum back in March, but this time, you can adjust the volume to your liking. Hopefully I fixed the pronunciation problems that you all so kindly overlooked. We’ve produced a CD of 20 songs, and we’re pretty happy with the way it turned out. Thanks again for the wonderful hospitality of our friends in Palau, old and new.

I selected the title “Mengemedaol er a Irechar” because I like the sense that the word “mengemedaol” can mean either “to welcome” or “to celebrate.” The way I think of this word, is through its relation to the word “klechedaol,” the activity where one village invites another to come and spend some time together, dancing, singing and just renewing their friendship. Mengemedaol is like the welcome that one family makes to another, as they come together to share some joy. And it is also the prelude — the first step — to a celebration of shared experiences. And I think that is what we should do with respect to the past: welcome it into our lives and celebrate the beauty that was brought to us by our elders and ancestors. I don’t know about you, but I think it is pretty cool that in 2018 I am singing a song — Tobiera — that two remechas named Dilmers and Degaragas sang in 1936 and was composed by some unidentified person in 1931, 87 years ago. How different their lives were to ours today, but we can cross the bridge to the past (adidil er a irechar) and join them for a song.

If you click on the link you can listen online to all the songs on the CD.

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Filed under Japan, language, Micronesia, migration, music, U.S.

by | 21 December 2022 · 6:48 am

Siberian Learning Sonsorolese

From A Journey into Russia, by Jens Mühling (Armchair Traveller series; Haus, 2015), Kindle Loc. 3438ff:

I met San Sanych’s friend Sergey, the most exotic inhabitant of Abaza. He was an instrument maker. His house was stuffed with self-made didgeridoos and shaman drums, which he sold at Siberian folklore festivals. The business was going well; Sergey had almost enough money saved to realise his life’s dream. He wanted to emigrate. Abaza was not remote enough for him. He was drawn to a tiny island named Sonsorol, located in the middle of the Pacific. It had 23 inhabitants; Sergey wanted to be the 24th. So far he had only seen the island on pictures, but through the Internet he was in contact with two residents who supported his relocation plans. ‘They both know the Governor of the island,’ Sergey said proudly. I wanted to argue that with 23 inhabitants, every second one was presumably related to the Governor, but I bit my tongue. Sergey meant business. He had already filled out the visa form for the Pacific Republic of Palau. Now he was teaching himself the local language. Fascinated, I leafed through his rudimentary Russian-Palauan dictionary:

Mere direi – Babushka [Grandmother]

Haparu ma hatawahi – Spasibo [Thank you]

Hoda buou – Do svidaniya [Goodbye]

According to the Sonsorol.com/language page, these are genuine words in Sonsorolese, a Chuukic language related to Woleaian and Ulithian in Yap State, which lies to the north of the Republic of Palau. The Palauan language is very different. One of my graduate school classmates did her dissertation on Pulo Anna, a dialect of Sonsorolese.

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by | 31 October 2022 · 5:55 am

Destroying Truk, February 1944

From Ultra in the Pacific: How Breaking Japanese Codes and Ciphers Affected Naval Operations Against Japan, 1941-45 (The Secret War), by John Winton (Sapere Books, 2022), Kindle pp. 225-227:

Known as the ‘Gibraltar of the Pacific’, Truk was in fact not nearly as strongly defended as legend had it, but it was the best fleet anchorage anywhere in the Japanese mandated islands and had been the regular base for the Combined Fleet since July, 1942.

Truk’s geographical layout, of scattered volcanic islands inside a triangular-shaped coral reef, made it virtually impregnable to surface attack from outside its perimeter. But it was open to the air. After the same FRUPAC analysis of air search patterns from Truk as from Kwajalein, a powerful task force including six fleet and four light carriers in three groups under Mitscher (who had relieved Pownall in January) made a fast and undetected run towards Truk in the night of 16/17 February, 1944, to carry out Operation HAILSTONE.

Spruance himself was present, flying his flag in the battleship New Jersey (the fleet commander had also been present during the Marshalls landings, ready to take over command if the Combined Fleet sallied out). But there was no chance of that. Truk was just within bombing range of Kwajalein and Bougainville, and its supply route from the Empire was constantly beset by US submarines. Thus, Truk was no longer the safe base it had once been.

Photo-reconnaissance of Truk on 4 February showed plenty of targets, but the same reconnaissance flight had given the game away to Admiral Koga, who sent most of his warships to Palau and went back to Japan himself in the giant battleship Musashi.

The last cruiser, Agano, left Truk on 16 February and was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine Skate the next day. But the fleet auxiliaries, the oilers, seaplane carriers, submarine tenders and many Marus of the support force were due to leave later and were still in Truk when the first fighter sweep, launched from a point 90 miles north of Truk before dawn on 17 February, caught the defenders by surprise.

Seventy-two fighters followed by eighteen Avengers with incendiaries found some fifty merchant ships in the harbour and 365 aircraft ranged on the airfields. The strike put all but a hundred of the aircraft out of action. The carriers then mounted more or less continuous strikes of fighters, bombers and torpedo-bombers to work over the airstrips and attack shipping. That evening the Japanese made their only reply, a torpedo attack by Kates who scored a hit on the carrier Intrepid (a somewhat unlucky ship, nicknamed ‘The Evil I’), putting her out of action for some months.

In the meantime Spruance in New Jersey with another battleship, Iowa, two heavy cruisers, four destroyers and the light carrier Cowpens to give air cover, made one anti-clockwise sweep round Truk to catch any would-be escapers. They sank the light cruiser and Sixth Fleet submarine flagship Katori and the destroyer Maikaze.

That night a strike of Avengers, specially equipped and trained for night bombing, attacked shipping in the lagoon. It was the first time in the war such a raid had been made and it was a signal success: one-third of the total tonnage destroyed at Truk was sunk by these Avengers.

Strikes resumed the next day, 18 February. Everything that moved or floated had now been sunk or strafed and the aircraft turned their attention to fixed fittings — hangars, fuel tanks, storage dumps, buildings and vehicles. When the carriers retired at noon their aircraft had flown 1,250 sorties, dropped 400 tons of bombs and torpedoes on shipping and 94 tons on airfields and shore installations. They had sunk the cruiser Naka, auxiliary cruisers Aikoku Maru and Kiyosumi Maru, destroyers Oite, Fumizuki and Tachikaze, the armed merchant cruiser Akagi Maru, two submarine tenders, an aircraft ferry, six tankers and seventeen other ships — a total of about 200,000 tons. This was a crushing blow to the Japanese Navy. The loss of so many fleet supply and support vessels was as grave an operational defeat as the loss of capital ships. Truk was never the same again.

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Filed under Japan, Micronesia, military, U.S., war

by | 12 August 2022 · 9:19 am

Two D-Days: Saipan vs. Normandy

From World War II at Sea, by Craig L. Symonds (Oxford U. Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 540-541:

The American buildup for the invasion of Saipan (code-named Operation Forager) occurred simultaneously with preparations for Overlord; measured by firepower, the Saipan invasion fleet was even larger than the one devoted to Normandy. Raymond Spruance commanded the overall invasion force that included Pete Mitscher’s powerful Task Force 58, which by now consisted of fifteen carriers, seven battleships, eleven cruisers, and eighty-six destroyers. It would provide cover for an invasion force that included fifty-six attack transports and eighty-four LSTs carrying 127,571 soldiers and Marines. The employment of eighty-four LSTs in the Pacific at a time when Eisenhower was scrambling for just one or two more for Normandy was powerful evidence that the Germany-first principle had been virtually abandoned.

The invasion of Saipan also required a much longer sealift than at Normandy. While the invasion forces for Neptune-Overlord had to leap fifty or a hundred miles across the English Channel, many of the transports and amphibious ships loaded up at Pearl Harbor, more than thirty-five hundred miles from the target beach. For Neptune-Overlord, the LSTs could, and did, shuttle reinforcements and supplies to the beaches in a near-constant rotation for weeks after the initial landings. For Saipan, by contrast, the men, the equipment, the supplies, and the ammunition all had to cross the broad Pacific in a single giant stride. Eisenhower had warned Marshall that a shortage of LSTs at Normandy could mean that his invasion force might be stranded on the beach for as long as three days without resupply. By design, the men who invaded Saipan would be stranded there for three months before significant reinforcements or supplies could reach them, though of course the Japanese, too, would have to fight the battle with what they had on hand, since Saipan would be virtually cut off from support.

Like the men who invaded Normandy, the would-be invaders of Saipan first had to load the landing ships and landing craft; it was hard work, and dangerous, too. On May 17, as work parties were off-loading 4.2-inch mortar ammunition from LST-353 in Pearl Harbor, one of the mortar rounds detonated. The explosion ignited nearby barrels of gasoline, and the entire ship went up in a thunderous fireball, setting off a number of explosions on nearby ships. A witness recalled that “whole jeeps, parts of ships, guns, equipment, shrapnel, fragments of metal, all rained down on the waters of West Loch.” Before it was over, 168 men were dead, and six LSTs and three LCTs had been completely destroyed. It was just nineteen days after the loss of three LSTs off Slapton Sands in the English Channel. To replace the lost vessels, eight LSTs were transferred from MacArthur’s command. No doubt Ike wished it had been that easy for him.

The Saipan invasion force departed Pearl Harbor during the last three days of May. While en route, the tedium was broken by a not altogether unexpected announcement: “Now hear this. The invasion of France has started. Supreme Headquarters announced that the landings to date have been successful. That is all.” The news provoked loud and sustained cheering, and no doubt boosted the morale of those who were about to conduct their own D-Day.

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Filed under Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Micronesia, military, Pacific, U.S., war

by | 22 July 2021 · 6:49 am

Okinawan Emigration Destinations

From Liminality of the Japanese Empire: Border Crossings from Okinawa to Colonial Taiwan, by Hiroko Matsuda (U. Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle loc. ~840:

Before migration to the US mainland became popular in Okinawa, anti-Japanese sentiment spread across the West Coast, where the Japanese population had increased rapidly at the turn of the twentieth century. After the enactment of the Gentlemen’s Agreement in 1908, Okinawans were unable to enter the United States as migrant laborers. Thus, very few Okinawans followed the thousands of Japanese who had migrated to the US mainland. The few who did so during this period were youths pursuing higher education. Some went to the US mainland via Hawai‘i, Canada, and Mexico; a few traveled directly from Okinawa. As the Gentlemen’s Agreement allowed only families of migrants to enter for the purpose of reuniting with husbands and fathers, some female Okinawans arranged to immigrate and join their grooms in the United States as picture brides.

Elderly Okinawans have a saying that best sums up these migration trends: “The richest people were able to immigrate to South America; people with some money migrated to the Philippines; and the poorest worked on mainland Japan.” Indeed, when it proved too difficult to enter the United States as migrant workers, the Japanese turned to South America—especially Brazil—and the Philippines as alternative destinations. Later, the South Sea Islands [Micronesia] became popular as the South Seas Development Company (Nan’yō Kōhatsu) targeted and recruited Okinawan laborers for its sugar industry. While Brazil, the Philippines, and the South Sea Islands were under different governments and Okinawan immigrants there worked in different industries, there are some commonalities among them. First, the initial immigrants in these countries worked in manufacturing and commercial crop industries such as coffee (Brazil), abaca [aka “manila hemp”]  (the Philippines), and sugarcane (the South Sea Islands). Second, Okinawan immigrants accounted for the majority of Japanese immigrant communities in these countries despite their treatment as “second-class Japanese” and “the other Japanese.”

Japan sent the first indentured migrant farmworkers to Brazil in 1908. Okinawans accounted for more than 40 percent, 325 of the 781 immigrants, of that inaugural group of economic immigrants to Brazil. In fact, many of the first Okinawan immigrants left the plantations to which they were allocated shortly after their arrival. This gave a negative impression to both the Japanese and Brazilian governments. In 1913, the Japanese government refused to accept Okinawans wishing to travel to Brazil as indentured laborers, citing their propensity to leave the plantations and their cultural difference from Japanese workers from the other prefectures, but when migration agencies were unable to recruit enough laborers from the other prefectures, Okinawans were once again permitted to go to Brazil as indentured migrant workers. However, as was the case in the United States, Okinawan migration to Brazil was prohibited in 1919, and only immigrants who were currently in Brazil were allowed to send for their families.

…

In addition to Brazil, Okinawa sent a significant number of immigrants to other Latin American countries. For instance, Peru quickly became one of the most popular destinations for Okinawan migrant workers after the first group of Okinawan immigrants arrived there in 1899. Between 1899 and 1941, Okinawa sent 11,461 immigrants to Peru, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the total number of Japanese immigrants. Although the immigrants were initially employed on plantation farms, many later moved to urban areas, where they became grocery store or restaurant owners.

…

Similarly, most Japanese immigrants to Argentina were Okinawans. This is despite the fact that Japanese immigrants had been arriving in Argentina since 1910. There were 1,831 Okinawans in Argentina in 1940, accounting for approximately 45 percent of the Japanese population in the country. Not all Okinawans in Argentina had migrated directly from Okinawa; in actuality, many ended up in Argentina after traveling to Brazil and Peru. In Argentina, many Okinawans initially found work as factory laborers or porters. A sizeable number eventually set up small businesses such as coffee shops and laundries.

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Filed under Argentina, Brazil, Canada, economics, Hawai'i, industry, Japan, labor, Mexico, Micronesia, migration, nationalism, Peru, Philippines, U.S.

by | 21 July 2021 · 6:18 am

Defining Japan’s Southern Periphery

From Liminality of the Japanese Empire: Border Crossings from Okinawa to Colonial Taiwan, by Hiroko Matsuda (U. Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle loc. ~415:

Before proceeding, I should clarify the usages of the key terms in this volume, including “Ryukyu,” “Okinawa,” “Mainland Japan,” “Inner Territory,” and “Outer Territories.” The geographical name “Ryukyu” appears in Chinese historical documents such as the Book of Sui, which was written in the seventh century. In the fifteenth century, “Ryukyu” became the official name of the kingdom unifying the archipelagos of Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama, known today as the Ryukyu Islands or Southwest Islands. Under the Ryukyu Kingdom’s rule, the name “Okinawa” indicated the main island of Okinawa and surrounding small islands. In 1872, Japan’s Meiji government changed the kingdom’s status to that of a domain (han) by fiat; the government then declared the abolishment of the kingdom and the establishment of Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. However, as Wendy Matsumura explains, the word “Okinawa” is not a neutral geographical title referring to a Japanese prefecture but a term that implies a cultural community distinct from the Japanese nation-state. This volume loosely defines “Okinawans” as people whose families and relatives originated in Okinawa Prefecture or the Ryukyu Islands. The term “Okinawans” therefore encompasses people of diverse backgrounds, including those born in Okinawa Prefecture and those born and raised in Taiwan whose parents were born in Okinawa Prefecture. In fact, people from the Yaeyama and Miyako Islands often distinguish themselves from “Okinawans” even though they are part of Okinawa Prefecture, identifying themselves as people of Yaeyama and Miyako rather than as Okinawans. Nonetheless, in this volume, the term “Okinawans” includes people with Yaeyama and Miyako backgrounds unless otherwise indicated.

Likewise, in this volume, the term “Mainland Japan” loosely indicates the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. As the following chapters reveal, the word “Japanese” occasionally includes and excludes “Okinawan.” In other words, the social and cultural categories of “Japanese/the others” and “Okinawan/the others” have been persistent, although the categories are malleable and changeable. Mainland Japan is geographically ambiguous, but the notion of such a place suggests that Okinawans are “the others,” as Mainland Japan was considered dominant over the local islanders. In Okinawa Prefecture, Mainland Japan has customarily been called the “Inner Territory” (Naichi). However, to avoid confusion, this volume defines the Inner Territory as the territory under the rule of the Meiji Constitution (Constitution of the Great Japanese Empire). The notion complements the idea of the “Outer Territories” (Gaichi), which refers to the territories excluded from the Meiji Constitution.

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Filed under Asia, China, Japan, language, Micronesia, migration, nationalism, Taiwan

by | 13 July 2020 · 9:40 am

Islands Seeking Hawaiian Protection

From A Power in the World, by Lorenz Gonschor (Perspectives on the Global Past, U. Hawaii Press, 2019), Kindle Loc. c. 2340ff:

Unsurprisingly, one of the key elements of this reassertion of Hawaiian political, cultural, and spiritual identity during Gibson’s premiership was a public reiteration of the concept of Hawaiian primacy in the Pacific. In late 1880, still dealing with the aftermath of the Moreno affair and preparing for his voyage around the world, Kalākaua had received a request by Tonga’s King George Tupou I to enter negotiations for a friendship treaty with Hawai‘i, modeled after those Tonga had already concluded with Germany in 1876 and Great Britain in 1879. The Hawaiian king had responded enthusiastically. Tonga did not follow through on it, however, likely because it experienced domestic instability throughout the 1880s (Rutherford 1996, 143). Against this backdrop of renewed interest in the South Pacific for engagement with Hawai‘i, shortly after the king’s return from the world tour, Gibson had once more written an editorial urging that “the policy of this kingdom should be to assist, in every way that is practicable, to preserve the independence of all those communities of Polynesian race which have not already been driven by circumstances to seek the protection of foreign Powers.” He went on to mention “the significant fact that twenty years ago the Hawaiian Government had been thus represented in the South Pacific by a Commissioner, Mr. St. Julian, whose assistance had been gladly availed of by the inhabitants of the islands.” When this proposal was ridiculed by the Missionary Party press, Gibson had provided a lengthy Hawaiian-language rebuttal, written as a fictional discussion between a Hawaiian diplomat and the minister of foreign affairs of the island of Rarotonga. As the new head of the foreign office, Gibson had now full access to the department’s archives and further studied St. Julian’s earlier correspondence with Wyllie (Bailey 1980, 200–201). Being of like mind with the king on this matter, the two men now intended to bring those visionary ideas to fruition at last.

At the same time, during 1882 and 1883, petitions were received from Butaritari and Abaiang in the Gilbert Islands, asking for Hawaiian protection or outright annexation by the kingdom (Horn 1951, 62). One such petition had already been received in 1878 from Tabiteuea in the same archipelago (60), which had led to detailed discussions in the English-language press, referring to Wyllie’s and St. Julian’s earlier project. Replying to these requests, Kalākaua refused outright Hawaiian annexation but declared his intent to establish closer political relations with the islands’ leaders and unsuccessfully invited them to attend his coronation (63). In May 1883, the king of the Tokelauan atoll of Fakaofo also wrote Kalākaua, requesting him to bring back his people who had left the island. To follow up with the Gilbertese chiefs, in July 1883, Gibson commissioned Alfred Tripp, a ship captain involved in recruiting Gilbertese laborers who had been a member of Kalākaua’s privy council since 1874, as special commissioner for Central and Western Polynesia. Tripp’s mission was cut short because his ship was wrecked in the Gilbert Islands, but he communicated with all major chiefs of that archipelago and brought home more petitions for Hawaiian aid or protection.

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by | 10 May 2020 · 6:45 am

Early Japanese Interest in South Seas

From Nanshin: Japanese settlers in Papua and New Guinea, 1890–1949, by Hiromitsu Iwamoto (Journal of Pacific History, 1999), pp. 15-16:

Until the late 19th century the Japanese government had no policies for the South Seas. The government was preoccupied with domestic affairs, while Germany, the United States, Australia, France, Spain, Netherlands, and Britain were involved in the acquisition and exchange of tropical islands. The Japanese government’s primary concern was to centralise governance in order to build a strong empire which could not be colonised. External affairs were secondary concerns in which the government was mainly preoccupied with the removal of unequal treaties imposed by Western nations and the promotion of national prestige. Although Japan’s expansionism was shown in the 1870s in Saigō Takamori‘s claim to invade Korea, Ōkubo Toshimichi‘s decision to send a military expedition to Taiwan and the government’s declaration that the Ryūkyū Islands and Sakhalin were parts of Japan, the expansion was limited to the adjacent region. The government’s involvement in South Seas affairs was marginal and largely confined to matters of national prestige and the rights of citizens abroad.

Japan’s first involvement in the South Seas was an embarrassing episode involving emigrants to Guam. In 1868 about 40 Japanese emigrated as contract labourers to work on a plantation where a Spanish employer treated them harshly. The Japanese were treated no differently from locals and the employer did not pay their promised wages in full. Their complaint to a Spanish administrator was ignored. In 1871, after some had died due to harsh work conditions, three managed to return to Japan to report their plight. The government was astonished and the matter was discussed, but it is unknown whether it took any action to save these migrants or protested to the Spanish administration. In 1868, 153 contract labourers in Hawaii suffered a similar fate. These incidents embarrassed the Japanese government which was acutely sensitive about its national dignity but probably the government, which was just managing to survive by pacifying rebels, chose not to protest in order to avoid conflicts that it could not handle confidently. The government could only ban emigration by enforcing tight regulations to avoid further national disgrace.

However, the issue of sovereignty over the Ogasawara (also known as Bonin) Islands provided an opportunity to stimulate Japanese interest in the South Seas. Although the Tokugawa government hardly resisted when Commodore Perry demanded the opening of Japan and proclaimed US possession of the Ogasawara Islands in 1853, some vocal Meiji officials in 1875 ’emphasised the urgency of return of the islands that could connect Japanese interests to the South Seas’. The report of the Foreign Ministry to the Prime Minister explained that ‘the islands were a strategic point in the Pacific sea route, which was extremely important in Japan’s advancement in the South Sea’. Then negotiations began and the US compromised. The issue signalled the beginning of the government’s awareness of its interests in the South Seas. It was also significant in that the government promoted national dignity by recovering territory.

As the incidents in Guam and Hawaii showed, the government was aware of its weak internal position and tried not to provoke other Western nations in the South Seas until the 1880s.

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Filed under Australia, Britain, economics, France, Germany, Hawai'i, Japan, Korea, labor, Micronesia, migration, nationalism, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Spain, Taiwan, U.S.

by | 18 March 2019 · 5:45 pm

Yapese “See something, say something”

Public service announcements in TheBus in Honolulu typically include two Micronesian languages, Chuukese and Marshallese, in addition to several Asian languages, but I recently saw one that included Yapese, another language in Micronesia that is not closely related to any other Micronesian language, and is in many ways unique among Austronesian languages.

The Yapese text is written in a very barebones orthography, making even fewer distinctions than the Bible orthography. It makes me think someone who speaks but doesn’t write Yapese dictated it to someone who transcribed it without knowing much Yapese phonology or grammar (or even the Bible orthography), since they don’t write any glottal stops or glottalized consonants (usually marked by an apostrophe), only write 5 vowels, and misanalyze some small grammatical particles. The original spelling is in quotes.

I’ve respelled each line in something close to the new orthography, but without the controversial q for glottal stops, and also added a line with rough glosses for each word. The naag that I’ve glossed ‘TR’ makes transitive verbs out of other words, including words borrowed long ago from Japanese, like dengwa ‘telephone’ and unteng ‘drive’, as well as those borrowed more recently from English. The ea glossed ‘ART’ occurs before specific nouns that are neither indefinite (marked with ba) nor definite (marked with fa). It’s interesting that they felt it necessary to define English bus driver in a paraphrase that relies on an older Japanese loan.

“Mu ayweg nem. Mu rin.”
Mu ayweeg neem. Mu riin’.
You help you. You do [it].
= Be aware. Take action.

“Mu eg nag e nen nag be guy ni ra bucheg banen”
Mu eeg naag ea n’ean ni ga bea guy ni raa bucheeg ba n’ean
You report TR ART thing that you are seeing that will do-bad a thing
= Report anything you see that will cause harm.

“Mu dengwa nag e 911 fa mog ko bas driver”
Mu dengwa naag ea 911 faa moeg ko bas driver
You telephone TR ART 911 or you.say (it) to bus driver
= Call 911 or tell the bus driver

“(un ni be unteng nag e bas)”
(an ni bea unteng naag ea bas)
(person that is driving TR ART bus)
= (the person who is driving the bus)

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