Mussau-Emira language
Mussau-Emira | |
---|---|
Native to | Papua New Guinea |
Region | Islands of Mussau and Emirau (New Ireland Province) |
Native speakers | 5,000 (2003)[1] |
Language family | Austronesian
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | emi |
Glottolog | muss1246 |
ELP | Mussau-Emira |
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:
- (agi) a-namanama 'I'm eating'
- (io) u-namanama 'you're (sing.) eating'
- (ia) e-namanama 'he's/she's eating'
Sample vocabulary[]
Numbers[]
- kateva
- galua
- kotolu
- ga'ata
- galima
- gaonomo
- gaitu
- gaoalu
- kasio
- kasagaula
References[]
- ^ Mussau-Emira at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Further reading[]
- Blust, Robert (1984). "A Mussau vocabulary, with phonological notes." In Malcolm Ross, Jeff Siegel, Robert Blust, Michael A. Colburn, W. Seiler, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics, No. 23, 159-208. Series A-69. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-A69 hdl:1885/145028
- Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-C98 hdl:1885/145428
- Mussau Grammar Essentials by John and Marjo Brownie (Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages, volume 52). 2007. Ukarumpa: SIL.[1][permanent dead link]
External links[]
- Kaipuleohone has archived a word list of Mussau language
- Materials on Mussau-Emira are included in the open access Arthur Capell (AC1) and Malcolm Ross (MR1) collections held by Paradisec.
Categories:
- St Matthias languages
- Languages of New Ireland Province