reply to post by doom27
To continue with examining the Wynn page, I question "Another smaller animal, known as the Duah, is possibly related to the Ropen, a cryptid creature
said to haunts some of the far-flung outlying islands." I've lost count of how many times I have to correct this popular misunderstanding about the
words "duah," "duwas," and "ropen."
In 2003, I examined some of Paul Nation's videotapes of native testimony on Umboi Island. On one of those videos, a native talks about a creature
that stole his father's fish one night, as the men were camping. The man interviewed said, "In our language, we call it 'duwas.'" If I recall
correctly, that interview was on Umboi Island, where the Kovai language includes the word "ropen," but probably not the word "duwas."
In Papua New Guinea, there are hundreds of languages. How serious the misunderstanding commonly restated on web pages: the idea that "duah" and
"ropen" must designate separate flying creatures! My experiences interviewing natives in Papua New Guinea (native eyewitnesses of pterosaurs or
pterosaur-like creatures) and examining reports directly and indirectly, leads me to believe there is no simple distinction, even if the word "duah"
were the correct form of the word, which it is not.
The correct form of the word is "duwas," not "duah." The only word "duah," of which I am aware, in Papua New Guinea, is in Tok Pisin: equivalent
to the English word "door." It has no relationship to any flying creature.

