Alor Ethnobotany Project

NSF-BCS 0936887 Origins of the Alor-Pantar Languages
PI: Gary Holton, Department of Linguistics

This pilot project documents traditional botanical knowledge in Abui, an endangered non-Austronesian language spoken in the Alor Archipelago of Southern Indonesia. Given rapid changes in human-environment interactions, etnobotanical knowledge is particularly susceptible to loss and stylistic shrinkage. Building on more than a decade of collaborative research by an international team of investigators, this project will: (1) collect voucher specimens for herbarium deposit and determination to species; (2) create high-quality photographic images of each specimen; and (3) video-record, transcribe and translate conversations about knowledge of each specimen in Abui language. The results will provide a baseline for future comparative studies, forming the foundation for an empirical ethnobotanical dataset, which can be used for linguistic reconstruction of botanical terminology. Ultimately, such data provide clues to the ecosystems of ancestral homelands and aid in the identification of lexical borrowings which suggest prehistoric migration patterns and the emergence of areal features that demonstrate cultural and linguistic contact.