with Professor Peter Maitz, University of Augsburg, Germany

Unserdeutsch is the only German-based creole language we know of. It had its beginnings in the Bismarck Archipelago in Papua New Guinea shortly before and after World War I. Nowadays, only a few elderly speakers living in Papua New Guinea and the eastern states of Australia are still proficient in the language. The paper describes the goals and some preliminary findings of an international research and language documentation project based at the University of Augsburg focusing the current macro-sociolinguistic situation and the major typological characteristics of Unserdeutsch. 

Sponsored by the Department of Germanic Studies and the Texas Langauge Center