Decolonizing the Ourang-Outang

Language is a powerful form of communication that can reify and reproduce colonial legacies. For many primatologists--scholars who engage with diverse publics, ranging from personal social networks to formal classroom settings to myriad forms of science communication and outreach--it is common to encounter Anglophone speakers who add a final phoneme -ng, or /LATIN SMALL LETTER ENG/, to the word orangutan. We interrogate and explicate the colonial and literary legacies of this phonological enigma. Structured as an essay, our article reports phonological survey results from 569 British- and North American-English speakers as well as a time series analyses sourced from Google Books Ngram Viewer. We found a large disparity between British- and North American-English speakers--34% and 64% of which add the final /LATIN SMALL LETTER ENG/, respectively--and telling reversals to the predicted extinction curve of ourang outang in Google Books' British- and American-English corpora. Taken together, these findings put a new and problematic light on the final /LATIN SMALL LETTER ENG/. Our intent is not to police the boundaries of acceptable discourse but to equip primatologists with the background and data needed for productively discussing and remedying colonial legacies during the course of educational and public outreach.

Automated summary

Language is a powerful tool that can perpetuate colonial legacies. This article examines the phonological phenomenon of adding the final phoneme -ng to the word orangutan among English speakers and explores the colonial and literary implications behind it. The findings highlight the disparities between British and North American English speakers and shed light on the importance of addressing colonial legacies in primatology education and public outreach.