[NEW GUINEA] Fasu (Namo Me) – English dictionary

Ukarumpa, PNG : Summer Institute of Linguistics, [1981]. Royal octavo (204 x 167 mm), printed stiff wrappers, 444 pp; a good copy (some marginal damage to top corners of last 60 leaves); from The Papuan Collection of Charles Fletcher (Melbourne), his bookplate to the front free-endpaper.

‘The Fasu language is spoken by approximately 850 people living in the Nipa Sub Province of the Southern Highlands Province to the west of Lake Kutubu and generally to the norheast of the Kikori River. There is another group of approximately 150-200 living near the junction of tge Turama and Kanau Rivers in the Western Province. The people themselves call the language Namo Me. Fasu (more accurately pronounced Faso) is the name of one clan’ (Preface).

Fasu is not closely related to other languages but forms a possible branch of the Trans-New Guinea family.

Only two copies are recorded in Australian collections (ANU Library; State Library of New South Wales).