フォルカー クレイグアラン

British linguist Craig Alan Volker was born in California and attended school in Heidelberg, Germany and the USA. After graduating with a Master of Literary Studies from the University of Queensland with the thesis “An Introduction to Rabaul Creole German”, he earned a doctoral degree from the University of Hawai`i for his dissertation “Nalik Grammar (New Ireland, Papua New Guinea)”. He worked as a German and French teacher in Queensland, as a senior high school English teacher in Papua New Guinea, a senior lecturer at what is now the University of Goroka in Papua New Guinea before becoming Professor of Languages at the Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University in Japan, where worked from 1991 to 2012. After retirement he was Professor of Linguistic Research at Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea for three years and has been a visiting professor at several German and Swiss universities, leading seminars in topics related to Melanesian linguistics. He has been an Adjunct Professor (研究教授) in the Language and Culture Research Centre of James Cook Univeristy in Australia since 2013).

His research focuses on the indigenous languages of Melanesia, pidgin and creole studies, and language contact. He translates into and from the Nalik and Tok Pisin languages, and in recent years has promoted the teaching of Tok Pisin as a foreign language. 

Since 1988 he has had a home in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. He was made an “Assistant Talking Chief” of the Sea Eagle Clan of the Nalik people in New Ireland in 2007.