Mussau-Emira language

Mussau-Emira
Native to Papua New Guinea
Region Islands of Mussau and Emira (New Ireland Province)
Native speakers
 5,000  (2003)[1]
Austronesian
Language codes
ISO 639-3 emi
Glottolog muss1246[2]

The Mussau-Emira language is spoken on the islands of Mussau and Emirau in the St. Matthias Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago.

Phonology

Phonemes

Consonants

Mussau-Emira distinguishes the following consonants.

Bilabial Alveolar Velar
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p b t k ɡ
Fricative s
Liquid l r

Vowels

Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a

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'.

Morphology

Pronouns and person markers

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

Subject prefixes

Prefixes mark the subjects of each verb:

Sample vocabulary

Numbers

  1. kateba
  2. qalua
  3. kotolu
  4. qaata
  5. qalima
  6. qaonomo
  7. qaitu
  8. qaoalu
  9. qasio
  10. kasagaula

References

  1. ↑ Mussau-Emira at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Mussau-Emira". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.