Warembori language

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Warembori
Waremboivoro 
Pronunciation: [ˈwarɛmboiβoro]
Spoken in: Papua, Indonesia
Total speakers: ~600
Language family: Lower Mamberamo
 Warembori 
Writing system: Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: paa
ISO 639-3: wsa
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Warembori (native name Waremboivoro) is a moribund language spoken by about 600 people in river mouths on the north coast of Papua, Indonesia.

Contents

[edit] Classification

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

Classification is in dispute. Mark Donohue thinks it is related to Yoke (Pauwi), forming together the Lower Mamberamo family. On a 200 word list, they share 33%. Also there are some grammar similarities. According to Donohue, Warembori is heavily influenced by Austronesian languages to the west, in both vocabulary and grammar, Yoke is less influenced by them. Malcolm Ross thinks Warembori is a papuanised Austronesian language. He leaves Yoke unclassified due to lack of data, apparently referring to the fact that Donohue did not publish independent pronouns in Yoke. He did publish subject prefixes on verbs, which are very similar to Warembori, and the singular prefixes are also remarkably similar to two Kwerba family languages, namely Kauwera and Airoran, suggesting either borrowing or a distant relationship to Kwerba, though the Kwerba family shares almost no vocabulary with the Lower Mamberamo family. The Lower Mamberamo plural prefixes are similar to Austronesian, as are the plural object suffixes and, at least in Warembori, plural independent pronouns.

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

Front Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a

[edit] Consonants

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar
Stop Voiceless p t k
Voiced b d
“Heavy” ˀb ˀd
Nasal Voiced m n
“Heavy” ˀm ˀn
Fricative Voiceless s
Semivowel Voiced w j

The sequence /nk/ is realized as [ŋɡ].

The light voiced stops /b d/ lenite to [β r] between vowels within a word. The heavy stops do not lenite.

When a nasal is followed by a heavy plosive, it is lengthened, i.e. /mˀb/ [mːb] /nˀd/ [nːd]. When not followed by a stop, heavy nasals are long and preceded by a glottal closure, i.e. /ˀm/ [ʔmː] /ˀn/ [ʔnː]. Heavy consonants also attract stress (see below).

[edit] Stress

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

[edit] Grammar

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

[edit] Writing system

Warembori is written in the Latin alphabet, with a spelling system based on Indonesian. It represents phonetic, rather than phonemic, distinctions. In particular:

  • /b/ [β] is written v
  • /d/ [r] is written r
  • /nk/ [ŋɡ] is written ngg

[edit] References

  • Donohue, Mark (1999). Warembori. München: Lincom Europa. 
Languages