Sumeri language
Not to be confused with Sumerian language or Tanah Merah language.
| Sumeri | |
|---|---|
| Tanah Merah | |
| Region | West Papua |
Native speakers | unknown (500 cited 1978)[1] |
|
Trans–New Guinea
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
tcm |
| Glottolog |
tana1288[2] |
|
Map: The Sumeri language of New Guinea
The Sumeri language
Other Trans–New Guinea languages
Other Papuan languages
Austronesian languages
Uninhabited | |
The Sumeri language, Sumerine, one of two Papuan languages known as Tanah Merah, is spoken on the Bomberai Peninsula by perhaps a thousand people. It forms an independent branch of the Trans–New Guinea family in the classification of Malcolm Ross (2005). It has also been linked to the Mairasi languages, but those do not share the TNG pronouns of Sumeri. The pronouns are:
sg pl 1ex na-fea kiria 1in kigokomaka 2 ka-fea ki-fia
There are no 3rd-person personal pronouns, only demonstratives. The pronouns appear to reflect pTNG *na 1sg, *ga 2sg, and *gi 2pl.
See also
References
- ↑ Sumeri at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Tanahmerah". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide, Jack Golson, eds. Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.