Introduction

The Lou language is spoken on Lou Island in Papua New Guinea. It is classified as: Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Admiralty Islands, Eastern, Southeast Islands.

The Lou Dictionary came about in 2002, when we went to Lou Island, Manus, Papua New Guinea to work with the Lou people. We were introduced to Solak Pwaka, a retired school teacher living in Solang village. He had been collecting Lou words in the Baon dialect on scraps of paper for years, but had no means of publishing them. Verna typed the words into the computer while Robert and Solak worked on choosing the best English equivalent and part of speech for each word. Then Sassah Keliwin from Rei village took the printed copy and edited it; where the Rei word was different from the Baon word, he added it.

Robert & Verna Stutzman