Mussau-Emira language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mussau-Emira | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Papua New Guinea | |
| Region: | Islands of Mussau and Emira (New Ireland Province) | |
| Total speakers: | 4,200 to 5,000 | |
| Language family: | Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central-Eastern Eastern Oceanic St. Matthias Mussau-Emira |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | map | |
| ISO 639-3: | emi | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The Mussau-Emira language is spoken on the islands of Mussau and Emirau in the St. Matthias Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago.
Contents |
[edit] Phonology
[edit] Phonemes
[edit] Consonants
Mussau-Emira distinguishes the following consonants.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ |
| Plosive | p b | t | k g |
| Fricative | s | ||
| Liquid | l r |
[edit] Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
[edit] Stress
In most words the primary stress falls on the penultimate vowel and secondary stresses fall on every second syllable preceding that. This is true of suffixed forms as well, as in níma 'hand', nimá-gi 'my hand'; níu 'coconut', niyúna 'its coconut'.
[edit] Morphology
[edit] Pronouns and person markers
[edit] Free pronouns
| Person | Singular | Plural | Dual | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person inclusive | ita | ita lua | ||
| 1st person exclusive | agi | ami | ami lua | |
| 2nd person | io | aŋa | aŋa lua | aŋa tolu |
| 3rd person | ia | ila | ila lua |
[edit] Subject prefixes
Prefixes mark the subjects of each verb:
- (agi) a-namanama 'I'm eating'
- (io) u-namanama 'you're (sing.) eating'
- (ia) e-namanama 'he's/she's eating'
[edit] Sample vocabulary
[edit] Numbers
- kateba
- qalua
- kotolu
- qaata
- qalima
- qaonomo
- qaitu
- qaoalu
- qasio
- kasagaula
[edit] References
- Blust, Robert (1984). "A Mussau vocabulary, with phonological notes." In Malcolm Ross, Jeff Siegel, Robert Blust, Michael A. Colburn, W. Seiler, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics, No. 23, 159-208. Series A-69. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Mussau Grammar Essentials by John and Marjo Brownie (Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages, volume 52). 2007. Ukarumpa: SIL.[1]
