The Representation of Indigenous Languages of Oceania in Academic Publications

Abstract

Of the estimated 7117 languages in the world, approximately 1500 (21%) are indigenous to the Pacific. Despite composing approximately one-fourth of the world’s linguistic diversity, the representation of these languages in academic publication is scant, even in periodicals focused on Pacific Island studies. We investigated 34 periodicals that focus on research in Oceania. We report on (1) journal names; (2) how many are currently in circulation; (3) how many accept submissions in Indigenous Pacific languages; (4) what percent of the most recent articles were actually in Indigenous languages of the Pacific and (5) which languages those were. Five of the 34 journals allowed submissions written in Indigenous Pacific languages. Three of the five journals specified Hawaiian as an accepted language of publication; one Sāmoan and one Tahitian and any other Indigenous language of Polynesia. We were able to collect data on four of the five journals, which averaged 11% of recent publications in an Indigenous language. None accepted submissions in Indigenous languages from the Pacific outside of Polynesia.

1. Introduction

This is a survey of the representation of Indigenous Pacific languages in academic publications. Of the 7117 languages used in the world today, approximately 1500 (25%) are spoken in the Pacific region [1], p. 1; [2], p. 37. According to Anderson [3], p. 1 in a Linguistic Society of America publication, Ethnologue is ‘the most extensive catalogue of the world’s languages, generally taken to be as authoritative as any.’ Anderson states that Ethnologue’s 2009 edition cited 6909 distinct languages [3], p. 1. The most recent edition of Ethnologue, the 23rd edition, was published on Mother Tongue Day, 21 February 2020, and lists 7117 distinct living languages in the world [1].

This study expands on the work of Kleiber, Berez-Kroeker, Chopey, Yarbrough and Shelby [4], who investigated the number of publications in Indigenous Oceanic languages in the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM, uhm) Hamilton Library’s Pacific Collections. Kleiber et al. note that Ethnologue estimates 1400 languages in the Pacific region [4]. While the exact number of distinct languages is difficult to determine with absolute precision, the general consensus seems to be between 1400 and 1500 languages in Oceania. This count includes the languages of Papua New Guinea in the west, to languages as far east as Rapa Nui (Easter Island). They also observe that according to the Endangered Languages Catalogue (ELCat), almost all of the Indigenous languages of Oceania are considered endangered or severely endangered [4].

The primary collections of Pacific library collections include those housed at the University of the South Pacific, the US Library of Congress, Australian National University, the National Libraries of Australia and New Zealand and the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa library. Kleiber et al. explain:

An informal 2012 comparative assessment of Pacific-language holdings among the major Pacific library collections in the world...showed that in a representative sampling of 100 Pacific languages, the uhm Pacific Collection has more or equal numbers of resources for 72 of these languages.

[4], p. 110

The scope of this paper involves Austronesian and Papuan languages and does not include the languages of Australia. In many linguistic groupings of languages by geographic regions, Australian languages are treated separately from Austronesian and Papuan languages, as they are genetically unrelated in a linguistic sense. While Indigenous languages of Australia are also of value, this paper is concerned with the ‘sea of islands’ of which Hau‘ofa speaks [5].

2. Background

2.1. Delineating the Geographic Region and Defining Terminology

Much of the geographic nomenclature of Oceania was derived from Eurocentric origins, which in turn influenced racial categorizations of Indigenous people of Oceania [6]. For example, the word Pacific comes from the Latin term meaning ‘peaceful,’ because Ferdinand Magellan sailed into the South Sea and found it to be calmer than the Atlantic turbulent waters. The term Polynesia was coined by Charles Brosses, a French writer and comes from the Greek poly- (‘many’) and -nesos (‘islands’). Micronesia (′small islands’) and Melanesia (′black islands′) followed suit [6].

The terminology which most of the world uses to communicate about and understand Oceania is rooted in colonialism and Eurocentrism. One avenue in which Indigenous peoples of Oceania have been reclaiming language and ownership is through Indigenous neologisms for endonyms, some of them Indigenous versions of colonial terms. One such term is ‘Pasifika,’ a term of Niuean origin, the use of which has spread to refer to Indigenous Pacific Island peoples and langauges generally. Chu uses the terms ‘Pacific’ and ‘Pasifika’ interchangeably [7]. The majority of the younger generation of activists born in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s identify with the term Pasifika, while academics, including those of the same age group, tend to use the term Oceania more frequently. Ka′ili et al. use the term ‘Moana’ to refer to the Pacific/Oceania region [8]. One of the unique and valuable contributions of this term is that its etymological origins are Indigenous Moana languages (Moana meaning ′ocean′ in several Moana languages, including Hawaiian, Sāmoan, Māori, etc.). In an effort to acknowledge the problematic nature of the colonial history of the very terms used to describe the geographic locations and Indigenous peoples of this region of the world, while also desiring to be as inclusive as possible and to remain accessible to those who are more familiar with those traditional terms, we follow Hau′ofa′s practice of primarily using the terms ‘Oceania’ and ‘Oceanic’ to avoid Polycentrism [5]. This is inclusive of all of Oceania, as the term Moana is a Polynesian word and some Indigenous peoples of other areas of the Pacific outside of Polynesia (traditionally referred to as Micronesia and Melanesia) do not idenitfy with the term. Oceanic scholars have been working to decolonize terminology and methodologies in research and discussion about Oceanic peoples [5,9].

2.2. Language Rights and Critical Race Theory

Delgado and Stefancic address the relevance of language rights to Critical Race Theory:

A second speech-related issue concerns the rights of non-English speakers to use their native languages in the workplace, voting booth, schoolhouse and government offices. This issue, of great concern to Asian and Latino populations, squarely confronts a growing tide of nativist sentiment that also includes immigration controls and restrictions on the provision of government services to noncitizens….although over half of American states have enacted English-only measures over the past two decades, the tide may be turning: the Arizona State Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional that state′s harshly enforced official-English statute as a violation of the First Amendment.

[10], p. 128

However, in 2006, the State of Arizona passed yet another law requiring ‘English-only’ [10], p. 129.

Most of the dialogue on Critical Race Theory does not address Indigenous peoples of Oceania. Teranishi et al. and Museus et al. address Critical Race Theory in relation to Pacific Islanders and Asians [11,12]. Museus et al. note that: ‘Aggregating all AAPIs into one racial category prevents scholars and practitioners from examining and serving the needs of many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who are neglected in the shadows of persistent stereotypes…’ [11], p. 62. They also report on the scarcity of Pacific Islander representation in university administrations and the necessity of using Critical Race Theory rather than normative frameworks to address the needs of Indigenous peoples of Oceania in academia, both as college students and as university professionals [11], pp. 64–65. Doing so has the potential to result in more fair practices that do not disadvantage or overly burden native speakers of Indigenous languages, both as faculty and scholars producing research and publications and as students and junior researchers and other scholars accessing this research. As the situation currently stands with English as the dominant language in which even research about Oceania is published, Indigenous peoples are required to use the medium of English to research and write about issues regarding their own islands, geographic region and culture. The language of colonizers may not always be sufficient to describe Indigenous frameworks, theory and knowledge.

2.3. Language Endangerment, Language Oppression and Language Revitalization

The importance of providing more avenues for both receiving education and providing professional opportunities through the medium of Indigenous languages can be better understood through the lens of language endangerment, language oppression and language revitalization.

2.3.1. Language Endangerment

Language endangerment most typically occurs with language shift, when a language is spoken ‘by fewer and fewer speakers who use it in ever fewer domains until, finally, no one is able to speak it in any context’ [13], p. 110. When no one speaks a language, knowledge that was contained within that language is lost to humanity. We also lose some of human diversity.

Some of the factors by which the level of language endangerment is measured are domains of use, the age of speakers, the absolute number of speakers, attitudes about the language and intergenerational transmission. Providing more educational and professional opportunities for Indigenous university students, researchers, faculty and scholars would increase the domains of use of currently at-risk or endangered Indigenous languages, helping in the maintenance, reclamation and/or revitalization of these languages.

2.3.2. Language Oppression

Language oppression is one of the many casualties of colonialism. Roche points out that the term language endangerment can be problematic when it passivizes the process by which language endangerment occurred [14]. In other words, the agent and causation are erased, in a sense erasing responsibility. Some causes of language endangerment do not have a human agent. For example, the Tambora language of Indonesia went dormant due to a volcanic eruption that killed every person who spoke the Tambora language [15]; [16], p. 363; [17]. In such cases, the term ‘language endangerment’ is accurate.

While ‘language endangerment’ is a blanket term that is not necessarily inaccurate, the term ‘language oppression’ is even more precise in acknowledging the history of colonialism and active oppression [14]. Throughout the Pacific, including in Hawai′i, Indigenous languages were oppressed. English-only schools were established (or in some cases, Spanish or French) and colonizers used European languages in government and other domains, further pushing Indigenous Oceanic languages out of their natural domains.

2.3.3. Language Revitalization and the Benefits of Indigenous Language Education

Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, Indigenous peoples across Oceania began revitalizing traditional cultural knowledge and native languages through language nests. These expanded to language immersion schools, radio, television, universities and even graduate programs in the cases of Māori and Hawaiian [18].

As educational opportunities have become increasingly available in some Indigenous languages of Oceania over time, increasing academic publications in these languages can provide future scholars opportunities to see their identities represented in these works. Another direct and immediate benefit of having more academic publications in Indigenous languages is that it would provide future and current generations of scholars access to the specific knowledge contained within these publications. Furthermore, having more academic publications in Indigenous languages can help to normalize and create the expectation for educational and professional environments that do not require assimilation, creating space for people of diverse backgrounds to participate in and to contribute to discourse while maintaining their identity. The intention is not to suggest insulating Indigenous contributions intra-linguistically; rather, journals can provide original texts in Indigenous languages when it is the L1 of the contributing scholar, as well as provide translations into widely-spoken languages, allowing for a seamless, bidirectional flow of influence.

The benefits of language revitalization are many and varied. Benefits include the psychological well-being and lower suicide rates among Indigenous youth in communities where a critical number of people speak the Indigenous language [19]. Studies have shown that children who attended Indigenous language immersion programs had higher rates of graduating from high school and attending a university after graduation [20], p. 8.

Other benefits are qualitative rather than quantitative and include feeling more connected to one′s ancestors and heritage, as well as possible positive effects on physical health [11,18,21].

2.4. The History of Indigenous Language Use, Oppression and Revitalization in Oceania

We recognize that each island group and each language situation is unique. Due to the vast diversity within Oceania, it would not be possible to provide a description of the historical and cultural background of language oppression and revitalization for every Indigenous language in the region. However, we do provide three examples. In an effort to avoid Polycentrism, we provide examples from different regions of Oceania. Polycentrism can be a roadblock to finding information on other areas of Oceania outside of Polynesia, as they have not been investigated as much, resulting in fewer publications on these other areas of Oceania.

2.4.1. Hawaiian

Hawai′i first experienced European contact in 1778 and English-speaking missionaries in 1820 [22]. On 15 October 1840, King Kamehameha III established public education in the Kingdom of Hawai′i. In 1893, the Hawaiian government was illegally overthrown by American merchants who held Queen Liliu′okalani under house arrest in her own palace. Three years later, in 1896, the Hawaiian language was ‘banned as a medium of instruction in the public education system [23].’ In 1978, 82 years later, the Hawaiian Education committee of the State Constitutional Convention called for the promotion of Hawaiian language and culture in public schools [23]. In 1980 the first Hawaiian studies program was established and six years later, in 1986, the first Hawaiian language immersion program was started. As of 2006, one can earn a Ph.D. in Hawaiian and Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization, with the doctoral program itself in Hawaiian immersion [24,25].

2.4.2. Guam

Guam serves as one of many case studies in Oceania with an oppressive linguistic history resulting in near extinction of its native language, known as Chamorro. First contact with Europeans occurred in 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe for the king of Spain. This encounter being the catalyst for the next 300 years of Spanish colonialism and conquest [26]. The aforementioned period of colonialism left its mark as today more than half of the Chamorro vocabulary is borrowed from Spanish, though the language′s traditional grammar has remained. It is important to note that even during the Spanish colonial era 75% of the population maintained literacy and active knowledge of Chamorro, while a century later the 2000 U.S. Census indicated that fewer than 20% of Chamorros living in Guam speak the native language fluently. The reason for this precipitous drop in language fluency lies within the enforcement of the English language and consequently the prohibition of the native language.

The end of the Spanish-American war also brought about the end of Spanish occupation and ushered in a new age of American imperialism in Guam. In 1917 the Naval Government Executive Order No. 243 banned speaking Chamorro designating English as the only official language of Guam and ordered that ‘Chamorro must not be spoken except for official interpreting’. A few years later naval governor Adelbert Althouse took issue with the lack of English literacy in Guam and collected and burned all Chamorro to English dictionaries [27].

Almost a hundred years later and though revitalization efforts exist they face an uphill battle after centuries of colonization and near linguistic extinction. Nevertheless, within the last few decades varying attempts at reviving the Chamorro language can be seen such as schools that have created Chamorro immersion programs and technology that has opened other avenues to restore linguistic heritage. Creative ways through technology include soap operas and children television programs that are interweaving Chamorro language and culture into entertaining forms of media [28,29,30,31].

2.4.3. Vanuatu

Oceania also houses the country with the highest density of languages per capita in the world Oceania; Vanuatu [32]. There are over a hundred local languages spread out over the archipelago, though the official languages of Vanuatu are: English, French and Bislama (a creole language derived from English). Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queiros led the first European encounter in 1606 where he claimed the archipelago for Spain. A mostly empty claim as Spain abandoned their only settlement fairly early on and over a hundred years passed until Europeans tried again to establish a foothold in the islands [33].

From the period of 1906–1980 the islands of Vanuatu were in a unique government situation where both France and the United Kingdom presumed control and instituted their languages as primary education accordingly. This resulted in the official languages of French and English being split depending on political geographical lines to this day [34].

Vanuatu only recently gained their independence 40 years ago on the 30 July 1980. Wherein Vanuatu′s Constitution declared protection for more than 100 Oceanic vernacular languages that reside within its islands. Additionally, it instituted an annual report to Parliament on the ‘observance of multilingualism’ and the ‘measures likely to ensure its respect’. There are differing views on the language situation in Vanuatu but the majority opinion is that though there have been constitutional changes, little attempt has yet to be made to actually promote adequate literacy in any of the native languages while English and French are still widely promulgated. Though Bislama is a national spoken language there are scholars who advocate against the widespread and legitimization of it as Bislama could foreseeably push out the development and conservation of the hundred or more so native Oceanic languages [35].

3. Methods

In this survey we selected 34 academic periodicals relating to Pacific Island studies to see (1) how many journals allow submissions in Indigenous Oceanic languages and (2) how many articles written in Indigenous Pacific Island languages are actually published in those journals. While it would be important to make academic research in any discipline accessible in minority languages, if any genre of study would have publications available in Oceanic languages, one might expect a greater likelihood of access to publications in an Oceanic language when the content is about the Pacific. Thus, we limited the scope of this study to academic publication series specifically on Pacific Island topics.

As the journals included were not intended to be statistically representative, we selected journals that (1) appeared to be academic in nature; and (2) were concerned with research topics in Oceania. We included every journal in the UCLA database of Pacific Island Studies [36]. We also used Google searches and the BYU-Hawai′i Joseph F. Smith Library. While not an exact science, since we were gathering as many journal titles as possible without needing evenly distributed representation, we ran multiple queries including names of specific Indigenous languages of Oceania and ‘academic journal’ (e.g., Fijian, Samoan, Tahitian, Māori, Pohnpeian, etc.). We also conducted queries using geographic terms such as ‘Oceania’, ‘Pacific’, ‘Micronesia’, ‘Melanesia’, ‘Polynesia’, ‘New Caledonia’ and ‘Papua New Guinea’ with the term ‘academic journals’. We included journals from various disciplines: medicine, linguistics, theology, anthropology, etc. The Māori journal Te Kaharoa appeared in the query results and was included. There are likely other Māori language journals, but they did not appear in our query results.

In the first column in

Table 1. Languages of published articles in journals on Pacific Island studies.

	Journal Title	Currently Publishing (Y = Yes, N = No, U = Uncertain)	Languages in Which Submissions Are Accepted	Percent of Articles Published in Indigenous Languages
1	The Contemporary Pacific	Y	Unspecified 1	0% (27/27 of Dec 2020 in English)
2	Journal of Pacific History	Y	English, French	0%
3	Island Studies Journal	Y	English	0%
4	Journal of Polynesian Society	Y	English	0%
5	Littéramā′ohi	U (2002–2018)	French, Tahitian, a major Western language (e.g., English, Spanish), any other Polynesian language and Chinese languages. If written in Tahitian or another Polynesian language, a French translation is also requested. 2	? (Uncertain)
6	Hawai′inuiākea	U (2011–2018)	Hawaiian, English	~17% (Hawaiian)
7	AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples	Y	Indigenous languages, English	0% of last issue
8	Hawaiian Journal of History	U	English	0%
9	Online Journal of International Education	U (2016–2018)	Unspecified	0%
10	Asia Pacific Viewpoint	Y (Dec 2020)	English (translation services provided for other languages)	0%
11	Archaeology in Oceania	Y	English, French (both required for abstracts; English editing assistance & translations provided)	0%
12	Oceania	Y	English (English editing assistance & translations provided)	0%
13	The Pacific Studies Journal	Y	English	0%
14	Te Kaharoa	Y	Unspecified	0% (of most recent issue)
15	South Pacific Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences	N	English	0%
16	Mana: A South Pacific Journal of Art and Culture, Language and Literature	N	Unspecified	? (Uncertain)
17	Hūlili: Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Well-Being	Y	Uncertain (Hawaiian, English observed)	~7% (1/14 most recent issue) Hawaiian
18	Palapala	N	Hawaiian, English (perhaps others?) All articles require abstracts in both Hawaiian and English	~44% Hawaiian or bilingual Hawaiian/English (8/18 from 2017–2018)
19	Oceanic Linguistics	Y	English	0% (129/129 English from 2015–2019)
20	Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing	N	English	Uncertain
21	Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology	Y	English	0% (42/42 English in 2020)
22	Pacific Affairs	Y	English	0%
23	Bamboo Ridge: the Hawaii Writers′ Quarterly	U	Unspecified (English observed)	Uncertain
24	Graduate Journal of Asia Pacific Studies	U (2014 most recent found)	Unspecified (English observed)	0% (24/24 in English, 2008–2014)
25	New Zealand Journal of Archaeology	N (2010 became Journal of Pacific Archaeology)	Unspecified (English observed)	0%
26	New Zealand Journal of History	Y	Unspecified	0% (2015–2018, 20/20 English)
27	Journal of Samoan Studies	Y	Sāmoan, English	~12% (4/34 in Sāmoan in 2020)
28	Undergraduate Research Journal of Micronesia	U (2017)	Unspecified	0% (2017, 5/5 English)
29	Melanesian Journal of Theology	U (most recent 2018)	Unspecified (all observed are English)	0% (2015–2018)
30	Fijian Studies: A Journal of Contemporary Fiji	N (2003–2008)	English	0%
31	Fiji Medical Journal	Y	English	0%
32	Asia-Pacific Journal of Education, Business and Society (APJEBS)	Y	English	0%
33	Journal of Pacific Archaeology	Y	English (A note is allowed in Spanish or French with English abstract)	0%
34	Journal of Pacific Studies	Y	English	0%

¹https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CP_ManuscriptPreparationD2.pdf (accessed on 31 March 2021) ². http://ile-en-ile.org/litteramaohi-presentation/ (accessed on 4 February 2021) Original text in French: «Les textes peuvent être écrits en français, en tahitien, ou dans n′importe quelle autre langue occidentale (anglais, espagnol…) ou polynésienne (mangarévien, marquisien, pa′umotu, rapa, rurutu…) et en chinois. Toutefois, en ce qui concerne les textes en langues étrangères comme pour ceux en reo ma′ohi, il est recommandé de les présenter dans la mesure du possible avec une traduction, ou une version de compréhension, ou un extrait en langue française.»

, we entered journal names. In the second column, we entered whether or not the journal was currently publishing, entering a ‘Y’ for yes, and an ‘N’ for not current publishing. For those cases which were unclear, we put a ‘U’ for uncertain and the date of the most recent publication.

For the third column, we visited each journal′s website when possible, consulting submission guidelines for authors. For cases in which the journal explicitly stated in which languages that submissions must be written, we entered those required languages in Table 1. Where no languages were specified, we entered ‘Unspecified’. Where no languages were specified, but all articles observed were in English, we entered ‘Unspecified (English observed)’.

In the final column, for journals that did not accept submissions in any Indigenous Oceanic language, we entered ‘0%’. For those that were unspecified, we looked through articles in the journal. If we did not observe any articles in a language other than English, we entered ‘0%’. For those journals that we were not able to access articles to determine languages in which they were published, we entered ‘Uncertain’. When a limited number of issues/articles were analyzed, we entered the number of articles and the years or most recent issue. There are some limitations to the methods we used. Because each journal had a different publication cycle, the number of variables made it impossible to be entirely consistent. For example, the series Hawai′inuiākea differs from most of the others in that it publishes a book every so often, rather than a journal issue at consistent intervals, so we counted chapters in volumes rather than articles to get the percent of Hawaiian. Within the four series that published in Indigenous languages, while many papers contained lines, quotes or passages in an Indigenous language, to count towards the percent the entire paper had to be written in the language. Bilingual papers (papers written in an Indigenous language with a complete translation in English) were counted as a paper in the Indigenous language towards the total percent. In the future, perhaps an improved method could be developed to compare the percent of papers published across periodicals with vastly different numbers of issues per year and numbers of articles per issue.

4. Results

Of the 34 periodicals investigated, in 26 of these publications, 0% of the articles published were in an Indigenous Oceanic language; four were uncertain, meaning we were unable to access data to determine the languages of the most recent articles published); and in only four of the 34 journals did we observe any articles published in an Indigenous language of the Pacific. The findings are presented in Table 1.

Although five journals explicitly allow submissions in at least one Indigenous Oceanic language, we were only able to observe actual articles published in Indigenous languages in four of the five. The five that allow submissions are: (1) Hawai′inuiākea, (2) Literamaohi, (3) Hūlili, (4) Palapala and (5) Journal of Sāmoan Studies. The Oceanic languages allowed are Sāmoan (in the Journal of Sāmoan Studies), Hawaiian (in Hawai′inuiākea, Hūlili and Palapala) and any Indigenous language of Polynesia (in Literamaohi).

The publication series Palapala provides all author submission information in both Hawaiian and English. For example, in the “About” section of the journal, it states:

E nānā ′ia ana nā ′atikala a pau i kākau ′ia ma ka ′ōlelo Hawai′i, ma ka ′ōlelo Pelekānia ho′i.

′O nā ′atikala na′e ma kekahi ′ōlelo ′oko′a, inā e loa′a mai nā hoa loiloi i mākaukau ma ia ′ōlelo, ′o ka nānā like mai nō ia.

Articles may be written in Hawaiian or English, while articles written in other languages will be reviewed pending the availability of competent reviewers.

[37], p. VI

He koina ka ′ōlelo hō′ulu′ulu no kēlā me kēia ′atikala, ma ka ′ōlelo Hawai′i paha, ma ka ′ōlelo Pelekānia pha. Ke hā′awi ′ia mai ia ′ōlelo hō′ulu′ulu ma ka ′ōlelo ho′okahi wale nō, na ka luna ho′oponopono ka mea nele e ho′olako mai

Each submission should include a brief summary in Hawaiian, English, or both. If an article is selected for publication, the editor will translate any missing Hawaiian- or English-language summaries.

[37], p. VII.

5. Discussion

The findings and their implications are discussed below in the broadest context possible.

5.1. Potential Challenges to Academic Publishing in Oceanic Languages

Some of the potential challenges of accepting publications in an Indigenous language of the Pacific may include finding authorities on the topic of the paper who are also fluent in the language to serve as peer-reviewers. Another potential challenge could be limiting the potential audience if a paper is published in an Indigenous language without a corresponding translation into a language with more speakers/readers. Yet another obstacle preventing journal editors from printing articles in Indigenous languages or bilingual submissions might be the space it would occupy, or the expense of printing longer papers (in the case of bilingual texts).

5.1.1. Education Systems

Even traditionally vital languages like Tongan that enjoy official national status are becoming increasingly at risk of endangerment [38]. Perhaps one of the origins of the problem is the loss of intergenerational transmission of the language through compulsory education in English. Because of English-only education, the younger, elementary school-aged generation already knows less of the Indigenous language than even the parent generation. In the Language Endangerment Index, the scale which the Catalogue of Endangered Languages uses, intergenerational transmission, is weighted as more significant than any other factor in determining how endangered a language is [39].

5.1.2. Tenure and Promotion

Policies and procedures for tenure and promotion are relevant in contextualizing the discussion of language of academic publications. However, information on tenure and promotion is not available for all universities in Oceania. This section is not intened to be exhaustive of all the information publicly available. The intention of this section is to address the role of one′s native language and Indigenous languages generally in tenure and promotion.

The University of Hawai′i at Mānoa addresses the issue of language only once, stating that both English and Hawaiian are official languages of Hawai′i and that the faculty member should indicate in which language they are submitting their dossier [40].

The publicly available documents on tenure and promotion at Brigham Young University-Hawai′i only mention language in teaching foreign languages as qualifying as teaching requirements towards tenure and promotion [41]. No mention is made of languages required for dossier submission or the language in which publications should be. There is also no indirect requirement of publishing in English or a dominant language, as there is no mention of needing to publish in a major journal in the field. However, this may be due to the fact that it is primarily a teaching university.

University of Auckland in New Zealand documents on tenure and promotion do not mention language at all [42].

Tenure and promotion policies for The University of the South Pacific and the University of New Caledonia were not publicly available online. All documentation on tenure and promotion referenced for this paper was written in the medium of English. However, the searches were also conducted in English, which may have skewed the results. Even if a university′s tenure and promotion documents do not directly mention English or another dominant language as being the required language of publications, any requirement for publishing in a major journal in the field indirectly discriminates against publications in Indigenous languages due to the limited opportunities and the limited number of major journals that would accept a submission in an Indigenous language.A more thorough investigation of Indigenous languages and tenure and promotion is beyond the scope of this paper and would be a valuable topic for other scholars to investigate in future research.

5.1.3. Journals

Many of the academic journals under review specified that they would only accept submissions written in ‘English.’ While this is occurring in a long and complex history of colonization, this seems to be one end of a chain of compulsory education in English or some other dominant language. If journals concerned with research in Oceania were to allow submissions in any Indigenous Oceanic language and provide translation services, this would more adequately keep the flow of information interacting with the communities from which research was gathered.

5.2. Possible Solutions

What can be done to make academic research more available in Oceanic languages? The challenges outlined in Section 5.1 are not insurmountable. One possibility would be for academic journals to allow bilingual submissions, as some journals currently do [37]. If there were no experts on the topic who were also fluent in the Indigenous language to serve as peer-reviewers, the English version could be peer-reviewed; the other language version could be reviewed by someone who knew the language to ensure it is translated correctly from the English, but they would not have to be an expert in the field. This language/translation review could happen following revisions at the end of the process for maximum efficiency, so that any revisions the author is required to make can be incorporated into the translation. There could be one or two reviewers who are experts in the discipline and one reviewer who is an expert in the language.

In order for this to be taken up as a common practice, both publishing in an Indigenous language as well as translating academic publications from or into Indigenous languages would need to be recognized by tenure, promotion, review and hiring committees as a valuable use of time. There is already a precedent for expanding the criteria tenure and promotion committees define as a valuable scholarly contribution.

5. For the purposes of research assessment, consider the value and impact of all research outputs (including datasets and software) in addition to research publications, and consider a broad range of impact measures including qualitative indicators of research impact, such as influence on policy and practice.

[43]

The Linguistic Society of America′s Executive Committee has already proposed that language documentation data to be recognized for tenure and promotion, suggesting that it could be categorized under non-traditional output. The Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication instructs to ‘Make sure that when metrics-based systems are utilized, journal and book publications in all languages are adequately taken into account’ [44].

To address the hurdle of bilingual submissions taking up too much space in a journal, one language version could be in the print copy and both could be available digitally. Alternatively, one language version could be in the print and digital copies with a URL for the language version archived online. Academic publications in Oceanic languages could be made available online, as Open Access resources.

Another possibility would be for Oceanic scholars and bilingual translators to start translating key academic research that is relevant to or that potentially has a direct effect on Oceanic peoples (e.g., climate change research, observations of changing sea levels and solutions). These translations could be published online in a separate database specifically geared toward academic publications in Oceanic languages. The journals in which publications on Pacific Island topics that originally appear in English could, in good faith, offer their articles to translators with an agreement that translations into Oceanic languages would be Open Access. This practice would be aligned with ethical approaches to research, to benefit and to disseminate information to those whose communities are being researched and to those who may be most affected by the phenomena being researched (e.g., pollution, rising sea levels).

In response to potential arguments that there are not enough scholars in certain disciplines who speak those Indigenous languages to warrant research printed in those languages, perhaps if there were more scholarly publications in those languages, more native speakers might become experts in those fields without having to go solely through the medium of English.

The language domain of education is crucial in language maintenance and language revitalization. Education as a language domain is not only concerned with the language of instruction in the classroom, but also the language of academic publications for research and course texts. From elementary school through doctoral programs, people have the right to use their language.

6. Conclusions

The limited number of academic publications available in Indigenous Oceanic languages is startling. The limited number of languages in which they are available is also startling, with only one journal that explicitly allowed submissions in a language other than Hawaiian, Tahitian, or Sāmoan. There are likely many more publications available in te reo Māori, but we did not come across these in our research. There are over a thousand languages in Oceania that do not have access to information on topics that may very well be relevant to their communities. The lack of a foothold of Indigenous languages in the academic domain is a concern for the vitality of the language. Increasing options to publish in Indigenous languages, especially when the journal theme concerns the Pacific, can assist in language maintenance and langauge reclamation.

Allowing Indigenous languages as mediums of academic publications would also likely improve social attitudes surrounding these languages and recognition of their value and relevance. However, this is not a burden that Indigenous scholars should have to carry. The intention is not to create yet another obstacle or obligation on already over-burdened shoulders. Rather, there should be options available for Indigenous scholars if it is more convenient for them to publish in Indigenous languages. Governmental and other funding institutions can make it requisite for non-Indigenous scholars to provide translations of research available in the Indigenous languages of the geographic regions being researched. These organizations can provide funding specifically to be used for translation from and/or into Indigenous languages, so that monolingual speakers of Indigenous languages can have access to research, Indigenous translators who are bilingual in the language and a dominant language will have more translation employment opportunities and Indigenous scholars can still have their work reach broader audiences by having their work available in widely known languages.