Iwam language
| May River Iwam | |
|---|---|
| Region | East Sepik Province |
Native speakers | (3,000 cited 1998)Category:Language articles with old speaker data[1] |
Sepik
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | iwm |
| Glottolog | iwam1256 |
| ELP | May River Iwam |
May River Iwam, often simply referred to as Iwam, is a language of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.
It is spoken in Iyomempwi (4°14′28″S 141°53′34″E / 4.24117°S 141.89271°ECategory:Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas), Mowi (4°17′42″S 141°55′45″E / 4.294971°S 141.929199°ECategory:Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas), and Premai villages of Tunap/Hunstein Rural LLG in East Sepik Province, and other villages on the May River.[1][2]
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | a |
In non-final positions, /u/Category:Pages with plain IPA /o/Category:Pages with plain IPA, /i/Category:Pages with plain IPA, and /e/Category:Pages with plain IPA are [ʊ] [ɔ], [ɪ], and [ɛ], respectively. /ə/Category:Pages with plain IPA appears only in nonfinal syllables. When adjacent to nasal consonants, vowels are nasalized; nasalization may also occur when adjacent to word boundaries.[3]
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
| Plosive | p | t | k | ||
| Fricative | s | h | |||
| Flap | r | ||||
| Semivowel | j | w |
/p/Category:Pages with plain IPA and /k/Category:Pages with plain IPA are voiced fricatives ([β] and [ɣ]) respectively) when intervocalic and unreleased when final (/t/Category:Pages with plain IPA is also unreleased when final). /ŋ/Category:Pages with plain IPA is a nasal flap ([ɾ̃]) word-initially and between vowels. /s/Category:Pages with plain IPA is [ts] initially and may otherwise be palatalized [sʲ].[3] Sequences of any consonant and /w/Category:Pages with plain IPA are neutralized before /u/Category:Pages with plain IPA where an offglide is always heard.
Phonotactics
Bilabial and velar consonants and /n/Category:Pages with plain IPA may be followed by /w/Category:Pages with plain IPA when initial. Other initial clusters include /pr/Category:Pages with plain IPA, /kr/Category:Pages with plain IPA, /hr/Category:Pages with plain IPA, /hw/Category:Pages with plain IPA, and /hn/Category:Pages with plain IPA and final clusters are /w/Category:Pages with plain IPA or /j/Category:Pages with plain IPA followed by any consonant except for /h/Category:Pages with plain IPA or /ŋ/Category:Pages with plain IPA.[3]
Pronouns
May River Iwam pronouns:[4]: 282
sg du pl 1 ka/ani kərər kərəm 2 ki kor kom 3m si sor səm 3f sa
Noun classes
Like the Wogamus languages, May River Iwam has five noun classes:[4]
class semantic category prefix example class 1 male human referents nu- (adult males);
ru- (uninitiated or immature males)yenkam nu-t
man class.1-one
‘one man’class 2 female human, children,
or other animate referentsa(o)- owi a-ois
duck class.2-two
‘two ducks’class 3 large objects kwu- ana kwu-(o)t
hand class.3-one
‘a big hand’class 4 small objects ha- ana ha-(o)t
hand class.4-one
‘a small hand’class 5 long objects hwu- ana hwu-(o)t
hand class.5-one
‘a long hand’
As shown by the example above for ana ‘hand’, a noun can take on different classes depending on the physical characteristics being emphasized.
Verbal morphology
May river Iwam has four periodic tense suffixes: matutinal -yok, diurnal -harok, postmeridial -tep and nocturnal -wae.[5]
Vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary words of Iwam are from Foley (2005)[6] and Laycock (1968),[7] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[8]
gloss Iwam head mu ear wun eye nu nose nomwos tooth piknu tongue kwane leg wərku; wɨrku louse ŋən; nɨn dog nwa pig hu bird owit egg yen blood ni bone keew; kew skin pəw breast muy tree pae(kap); paykap man kam; yen-kam woman wik sun pi moon pwan water op; o(p) fire pay stone siya eat (n)ai; (nd)ai one oe; ruk; su two ŋwis
Notes
- 1 2 May River Iwam at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 25 - ↑ United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Laycock (1965:115)
- 1 2 Foley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 197–432. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- ↑ Foley (2018:286), Jacques, Guillaume (2023). "Periodic tense markers in the world's languages and their sources". Folia Linguistica. 57 (3): 539–562. doi:10.1515/flin-2023-2013.
- ↑ Foley, W.A. "Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu basin". In Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. and Hide, R. editors, Papuan Pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. PL-572:109-144. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 2005.
- ↑ Laycock, Donald C. 1968. Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66.
- ↑ Greenhill, Simon (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea". Retrieved 2020-11-05.
External links
- Materials on Sepic Iwam are included in the open access Arthur Capell collections (AC1) held by Paradisec.
References
- Laycock, D.C. (1965). "Three Upper Sepik phonologies". Oceanic Linguistics. 4 (1/2). University of Hawai'i Press: 113–118. doi:10.2307/3622917. JSTOR 3622917.