Bukawa language
Bukawa (also known as Bukaua, Kawac, Bugawac, Gawac) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 10,000 people (in 1978) on the coast of the Huon Gulf, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The most common spelling of the name in both community and government usage is Bukawa (Eckermann 2007:1), even though it comes from the Yabem language, which served as a church and school lingua franca in the coastal areas around the Gulf for most of the 20th century. This ethnonym, which now designates Bukawa-speakers in general, derives from the name of a prominent village on the Bugawac ('River Gawac') at Cape Arkona in the center of the north coast.
Ethnologue notes that 40% of Bukawa speakers are monolingual (or perhaps were in 1978). This claim is hard to credit unless one discounts both Tok Pisin, the national language of Papua New Guinea, and Yabem, the local Lutheran mission lingua franca. The anthropologist Ian Hogbin, who did fieldwork in the large Bukawa-speaking village of Busama on the south coast shortly after World War II, found that everyone was multilingual in three languages: Tok Pisin, Yabem, and their village language (Hogbin 1951).
Phonology
Vowels (orthographic)
Bukawa distinguishes the eight vowel qualities. The central mid vowel is rounded, while the low vowel is unrounded.
Consonants (orthographic)
Glottal stop, written with a c as in Yabem, is only distinctive at the end of syllables. The only other consonants that can occur syllable-finally are labials and nasals: p, b, m, ŋ. Syllable-structure constraints are most easily explained if labialized and prenasalized consonants are considered unit phonemes rather than clusters. The distinction between voiced (vd) and voiceless (vl) laterals and approximants is unusual for Huon Gulf languages.
Tone contrasts
Vowels are further distinguished by high or low pitch. The latter is marked orthographically by a grave accent. These distinctions in tone are thus based on register tone, not contour tone as in Mandarin Chinese. Register tone contrasts are a relatively recent innovation of the North Huon Gulf languages. While tone is somewhat predictable in Yabem, where low tone correlates with voiced obstruents and high tone with voiceless obstruents, Bukawa has lost that correlation. Nor does Bukawa tone correlate predictably with Yabem tone. Compare Yab. low-tone awê 'woman' and Buk. high-tone awhê 'woman', both presumably from POc *papine (or *tapine).
| High |
Low |
| akwa 'canoe side support' |
akwà 'old' |
| atu 'offspring, baby' (POc *ñatu) |
atù 'big' |
| dinaŋ 'my mother' (POc *tina) |
dinàŋ 'that' |
| êŋgili 'stirs up' |
êŋgilì 'steps over' |
| huc 'pig net' |
hùc 'bear fruit' |
| mbac 'bird' (POc *manu) |
mbàc 'to rub' |
| ŋasi 'jaw' |
ŋasì 'fat' |
| puŋ 'press by hand' |
pùŋ 'make flat by adze' |
| siŋ 'canoe sideboard' |
sìŋ 'fight' |
| tam 'edible greens' |
tàm 'dew' |
| tuŋ 'garden fence' |
tùŋ 'cause pain' |
Morphology
Pronouns and person markers
Free pronouns
Genitive pronouns
The short, underdifferentiated genitive forms are often disambiguated by adding the free pronoun in front.
Numerals
Traditional counting practices started with the digits of one hand, then continued on the other hand, and then the feet to reach '20', which translates as 'one person'. Higher numbers are multiples of 'one person'. Nowadays, most counting above '5' is done in Tok Pisin. As in other Huon Gulf languages, the short form of the numeral 'one' functions as an indefinite article.
| Numeral |
Term |
Gloss |
| 1 |
tigeŋ / daŋ |
'one' |
| 2 |
lu |
'two' |
| 3 |
tö |
'three' |
| 4 |
hale |
'four' |
| 5 |
amaŋdaŋ / limdaŋ |
'hand-one' |
| 6 |
amaŋdaŋ ŋandô-tigeŋ |
'hand-one fruit-one' |
| 7 |
amaŋdaŋ ŋandô-lu |
'hand-one fruit-two' |
| 8 |
amaŋdaŋ ŋandô-tö |
'hand-one fruit-three' |
| 9 |
amaŋdaŋ ŋandô-hale |
'hand-one fruit-four' |
| 10 |
amaŋlu / sahuc |
'hands-two / ten' |
| 15 |
sahuc ŋa-lim |
'ten its-five' |
| 20 |
ŋgac sambuc daŋ |
'man whole one' |
| 60 |
ŋgac sambuc tö |
'man whole three' |
Names
Like most of the languages around the Huon Gulf, Bukawa has a system of birth-order names (Holzknecht 1989: 43-45). The seventh son is called "No Name": se-mba 'name-none'. Compare Numbami.
| Birth order |
Sons |
Daughters |
| 1 |
Aliŋsap |
Gali' |
| 2 |
Aliŋam |
Ika |
| 3 |
Aŋgua' |
Ayap |
| 4 |
Aluŋ |
Dam |
| 5 |
Dei |
Hop |
| 6 |
Selep |
Dei |
| 7 |
Semba |
|
References
- Bukawa language at Ethnologue
- Bradshaw, Joel (1997). "The population kaleidoscope: Another factor in the Melanesian diversity v. Polynesian homogeneity debate." Journal of the Polynesian Society 106:222-249.
- Eckermann, W. (2007). A descriptive grammar of the Bukawa language of the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Hogbin, Ian (1951). Transformation scene: The changing culture of a New Guinea village. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Holzknecht, Susanne (1989). The Markham languages of Papua New Guinea. Series C-115. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.