Golin language

Last updated
Golin
Region Gumine District, Simbu Province
Native speakers
(51,000 cited 1981) [1]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 gvf
Glottolog goli1247
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Golin (also Gollum, Gumine) is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.

Contents

Phonology

Vowels

Front Back
High ɪ ɪːʊ ʊː
Mid ɛ ɛːɔ ɔː
Low ɑ ɑː

Diphthongs that occur are /ɑi ɑu ɔi ui/. The consonants /l n/ can also be syllabic.

Consonant

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar
plain lab. plain Late. plainlab.
Nasal m n
Stop voiceless
/voiced
p
b

(bʷ)
t
d
k
ɡ

(gʷ)
Fricative s ~ ʃ ɬ ~
l
Approximant j w
Trill r

/bʷ ɡʷ/ are treated as single consonants by Bunn & Bunn (1970), [2] but as combinations of /b/ + /w/, /ɡ/ + /w/ by Evans et al. (2005). [3]

Two consonants appear to allow free variation in their realisations: [s] varies with [ʃ], and [l] with [ɬ].

/n/ assimilates to [ŋ] before /k/ and /ɡ/.

Tone

Golin is a tonal language, distinguishing high ([˧˥]), mid ([˨˧]), and low ([˨˩]) tone. The high tone is marked by an acute accent and the low tone by a grave accent, while the mid tone is left unmarked. Examples: [3]

Pronouns

Golin is notable for having a small pronominal paradigm. There are two basic pronouns: [4]

There is no number distinction and no true third person pronoun. In fact, third person pronouns in Golin are in fact compounds derived from ‘man’ plus inín ‘self’:

Related Research Articles

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with phoneme. Tonal languages are common in East and Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and the Americas; and as many as seventy percent of world languages are tonal. Hmong-Mien family has some of the most tones in tonal systems, with some languages having up to 12 tones. Vietnamese and Chinese are amongst the most well-known tonal languages used today.

Northern Thai, Lanna, or Kam Mueang, is the language of the Northern Thai people of Lanna, Thailand. It is a Southwestern Tai language that is phonotactically closely related to Lao. Northern Thai has approximately six million speakers, most of whom live in the native Northern Thailand, with a smaller community of Lanna speakers in northwestern Laos.

Ewe language Niger–Congo language spoken in southeastern Ghana and southern Togo, Benin, and South Western Nigeria

Ewe is a language spoken in Togo and southeastern Ghana by approximately 6.61 million people as a first language and a million or so more as a second language. Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe; the other major Gbe language is Fon of Benin. Like many African languages, Ewe is tonal.

West Papuan languages

The West Papuan languages are a proposed language family of about two dozen non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea, the island of Halmahera and its vicinity, spoken by about 220,000 people in all. It is not established if they constitute a proper linguistic family or an areal network of genetically unrelated families.

Isaka (I’saka) is the language spoken by the people of the villages of Krisa and Pasi in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. It has also been referred to as Krisa, after the village, although this name is not actually a possible word in the language itself. The sole published source for the language is Donohue and San Roque (2004), although the authors of this have also Identified I’saka material in Donald Laycock's unpublished fieldnotes.

Tauya is a Rai Coast language spoken in the Ramu River valley, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea by approximately 350 people. The Linguistics Department at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, has Tauya language resources.

The Lakes Plain languages are a family of Papuan languages, spoken in the Lakes Plain of Indonesian New Guinea. They are notable for being heavily tonal and for their lack of nasal consonants.

Sulka is a language isolate of New Britain, Papua New Guinea. In 1991, there were 2,500 speakers in eastern Pomio District, East New Britain Province. Villages include Guma in East Pomio Rural LLG. With such a low population of speakers, this language is considered to be endangered. Sulka speakers had originally migrated to East New Britain from New Ireland.

The Ndu languages are the best known family of the Sepik languages of East Sepik Province in northern Papua New Guinea. Ndu is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group. The languages were first identified as a related family by Kirschbaum in 1922.

Western Pantar language

Western Pantar, sometimes referred to by the name of one of its dialects, Lamma, is a Papuan language spoken in the western part of Pantar island in the Alor archipelago of Indonesia. Western Pantar is spoken widely in the region by about 10,000 speakers. Although speakers often use Malay in political, religious, and educational contexts, Western Pantar remains the first language of children of the region, and is acquired to some extent by immigrants.

Ekari language

Ekari is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken by about 100,000 people in the Paniai lakes region of the Indonesian province of Papua, including the villages of Enaratoli, Mapia and Moanemani. This makes it the second-most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea after Western Dani. Language use is vigorous. Documentation is quite limited.

Bukawa is an Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea.

Yabem, or Jabêm, is an Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea.

Kâte is a Papuan language spoken by about 6,000 people in the Finschhafen District of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. It is part of the Finisterre–Huon branch of the Trans–New Guinea language family. It was adopted for teaching and mission work among speakers of Papuan languages by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea in the early 1900s and at one time had as many as 80,000 second-language speakers.

The Dani or Balim Valley languages are a family of clearly related Trans–New Guinea languages spoken by the Dani and related peoples in the Balim Valley in the highlands of Papua Province, Indonesia. Foley (2003) considers their TNG status to be established. They may be most closely related to the languages of Paniai Lakes, but this is not yet clear. Capell (1962) had posited that their closest relatives were the Kwerba languages, which Ross (2005) rejects.

Chimbu–Wahgi languages

The Chimbu–Wahgi languages are a language family sometimes included in the Trans–New Guinea proposal.

Mpur language

Mpur, is a language isolate spoken in and around Mpur and Amberbaken Districts in Tambrauw Regency of the Bird's Head Peninsula, New Guinea. It is not closely related to any other language, and though Ross (2005) tentatively assigned it to the West Papuan languages, based on similarities in pronouns, Palmer (2018), Ethnologue, and Glottolog list it as a language isolate.

Morori language

Morori is a moribund Papuan language of the Kolopom branch of the Trans–New Guinea family. It is separated from the other Kolopom languages by the intrusive Marind family. All speakers use Papuan Malay or Indonesian as L2, and many know Marind.

Dom is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Eastern Group of the Chimbu family, spoken in the Gumine and Sinasina Districts of Chimbu Province and in some other isolated settlements in the western highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Musom is an Austronesian language spoken in the single village of Musom in Labuta Rural LLG, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The other name for Musom is Misatik, given by the older generations because this was the name of the village that the ancestors settled on. Musom is currently an endangered language due to the fact that native Musom speakers are continuing to marry other language speakers. Musom is also endangered because of its change in grammar and vocabulary due to its bi- and multilingualism. In the Musom village, other languages that Musom speakers may speak are Aribwuang and Duwet. In the Gwabadik village, because of intermarriages other languages that Musom speakers may speak are Nabak and Mesem.

References

  1. Golin at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    • Bunn, Gordon; Bunn, Ruth (1970). "Golin phonology". Pacific Linguistics A. 23: 1–7.
  2. 1 2 Evans, Nicholas; Besold, Jutta; Stoakes, Hywel; Lee, Alan (2005). Materials on Golin: Grammar, texts and dictionary. Parkville: The Dept. Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, The University of Melbourne.
  3. Foley, William A. (2018). "The morphosyntactic typology of Papuan languages". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 895–938. ISBN   978-3-11-028642-7.