Melpa language
Melpa (also written Medlpa) is a Papuan language spoken by about 130,000 people predominantly in Mount Hagen and the surrounding district of Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.
Melpa has a voiceless velar lateral fricative, written as a double-barred el (Ⱡ, ⱡ). It is notable for its binary counting system.
Decimal | Medlpa | Interpretation |
1 | tenda | "one" |
2 | ragl | "two" |
3 | ragltika | "two-one" |
4 | tembokak | "four" |
5 | pömp tsi gudl | "one past four" |
6 | pömp ragl gudl | "two past four" |
7 | pömp ragltika gudl | "two-one past four" |
8 | engak | "eight" |
9 | pömp tsi pip | "one past eight" |
10 | pömp ragl pip | "two past eight" |
References
- ↑ Melpa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Melpa". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
External links
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| Major Indigenous languages | |
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| Other Papuan languages | |
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