[Mihalic] New book: Tok Pisin Texts- aniani/yani yani and onions

[John Burton]

Robin

Mrs B now says that Wahgis don't (often) have round onions and that
'anian' usually means the shallot type anyway. Young people say 'anian'
but old people find it hard to get their mouths around this word and
consequently say 'aniani' as a variant.

Did you and did Sterly find 'anian' in the same places you found
'yaniyani'?

John Burton


> In the early 1970s in Simbu, introduced 'spring' onions or 
> shallots were 
> known always, in tok pisin (at least I thought of it as tok pisin and 
> remember using it, like Allison Jablonko, in the Simbai 
> Valley in 1962/63), 
> as 'yaniyani' (sometimes yani yani or yuni yuni).  This is 
> documented in:
> 
> Hide, R.L., Kimin, M., Kora, A., Kua, G., and Kua, K. 1979. A 
> checklist of 
> some plants in the territory of the Sinasina Nimai (Simbu 
> Province, Papua 
> New Guinea), with notes on their uses, University of 
> Auckland, Department 
> of Anthropology, Working Papers No. 54. Auckland, University 
> of Auckland, 
> Department of Anthropology.  see page 18
> 
> and  in:
> 
> Sterly, J. 1997. Simbu Plant-lore: Plants used by the people 
> in the Central 
> Highlands of New Guinea 3 Vols. Berlin, Dietrich Reimer 
> Verlag. see Vol 3, p. 76.
> 
> Robin Hide