Motu language

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Motu
Spoken in:	Papua New Guinea
Region:	Central Province
Total speakers:	14,000 in 1981
Language family:	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central-Eastern MP Eastern MP Oceanic Western Oceanic Papuan Tip Peripheral Central Papuan Sinagoro-Keapara Motu
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`–`
ISO 639-3:	`meu`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Motu (sometimes called Pure Motu or True Motu to distinguish it from Hiri Motu) is one of many Central Papuan languages spoken by the Motuans, native inhabitants of Papua New Guinea. It is still common today in the region, particularly around the capital, Port Moresby.

A simplified form of Motu developed as a trade language in the Papuan region, in the South-East of the main island of New Guinea, originally known as Police Motu, and today known as Hiri Motu. After Tok Pisin and English, Hiri Motu was at the time of independence the third most commonly spoken of the more than 800 languages of Papua New Guinea, although its use has been declining for some years, mainly in favour of Tok Pisin.

Motu is classified as one of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, and bears some linguistic similarities to the both Polynesian languages and Micronesian languages.

Motu itself is a language that is heavily vowel-based. Most words have as many vowels as consonants, and a significant number of words have more vowels than consonants. However since there are only five vowel sounds, it is relatively easy to enunciate (compared to English). The many diphthongs are simply combinations of the basic vowels. There are only sixteen consonants, only one of which is foreign to English. These are b, d, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w and the velar fricative usually written as ḡ. All are pronounced approximately as in English except r which is a "flipped" r,(ɹ), and the velar fricative. The letter "w" is used only in combination with "g" or "k" as "gw" or "kw", never alone.

[edit] References

Dutton, Tom (1985). Police Motu: Iena Sivarai (its story). Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea: University of Papua New Guinea Press.
Lister-Turner, R and Clark, J.B. (1931), A Dictionary of the Motu Language of Papua, 2nd Edition (P. Chatterton, ed). Sydney, New South Wales: Government Printer.
Lister-Turner, R and Clark, J.B. (1931), A Grammar of the Motu Language of Papua, 2nd Edition (P. Chatterton, ed). Sydney, New South Wales: Government Printer.
Brett, Richard; Brown, Raymond; Brown, Ruth and Foreman, Velma. (1962), A Survey of Motu and Police Motu. Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea: Summer Institute of Linguistics.