Meriam language
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| Meriam | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Murray Island, Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia | |
| Total speakers: | ~300–400 (1991) | |
| Language family: | Eastern Trans-Fly Meriam |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | paa | |
| ISO 639-3: | ulk | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Meriam (also Miriam, Meryam, Mer, Mir, Miriam-Mir, etc. and East Torres) is the language of Meriam people of Murray Island (Mer) in the Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia.
Contents |
[edit] Classification
Although Meriam is located in Australian territory, it is regarded as a Papuan language, not an Australian language.
Meriam was placed in the Eastern Trans-Fly family of Trans-New Guinea by Stephen Wurm, and this is followed by Ethnologue (2005). In 2005 Malcolm Ross concluded that the Eastern Trans-Fly languages were not part of Trans-New Guinea, but kept the family itself with Meriam as a member. R.M.W. Dixon (2002) regards claims of a relationship between the Fly River languages and Meriam as unproven.
The other Eastern Trans-Fly languages are Bine, Gizra, and Wipii.
[edit] Phonology
[edit] Vowels
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i
ɪ
|
u
ʊ
|
| Mid | e | o |
| Low | a | ɔ |
[edit] Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Voiceless | p | t | k | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | |||
| Fricative | Voiceless | s | |||
| Voiced | z | ||||
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Trill | r | ||||
| Semivowel | w | j | |||
[edit] Stress
Though in most words of two or more syllables it falls on the second syllable, stress is contrastive in Meriam and can occur on the first syllable.
[edit] References
- Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Passi, Gamalai Ken; Piper, Nick (1994). "Meryam Mir", in Nick Thieberger & William McGregor: Macquarie Aboriginal Words. Macquarie Library, 320–351.
- Piper, N. (1989). A sketch grammar of Meryam Mer. Australian National University.
- Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages", in Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson: Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 15–66.
[edit] External links
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