Iwam language

Not to be confused with Sepik Iwam.

May River Iwam
Region	East Sepik Province
Native speakers	(3,000 cited 1998) [1]
Language family	Sepik Upper Sepik Iwam May River Iwam
Language codes
ISO 639-3	iwm
Glottolog	iwam1256
ELP	May River Iwam
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May River Iwam, often simply referred to as Iwam, is a language of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.

It is spoken in Iyomempwi ( 4°14′28″S141°53′34″E / 4.24117°S 141.89271°E / -4.24117; 141.89271 (Imombi) ), Mowi ( 4°17′42″S141°55′45″E / 4.294971°S 141.929199°E / -4.294971; 141.929199 (Mowi) ), and Premai villages of Tunap/Hunstein Rural LLG in East Sepik Province, and other villages on the May River. ^{[1] [2]}

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels ^[3]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

In non-final positions, /u//o/, /i/, and /e/ are [ ʊ ][ ɔ ], [ ɪ ], and [ ɛ ], respectively. /ə/ appears only in nonfinal syllables. When adjacent to nasal consonants, vowels are nasalized; nasalization may also occur when adjacent to word boundaries. ^[3]

Consonants

Consonants ^[3]

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Plosive	p	t		k
Fricative		s			h
Flap		r
Semivowel			j	w

/p/ and /k/ are voiced fricatives ([ β ] and [ ɣ ]) respectively) when intervocalic and unreleased when final (/t/ is also unreleased when final). /ŋ/ is a nasal flap ([ ɾ̃ ]) word-initially and between vowels. /s/ is [ ts ] initially and may otherwise be palatalized [ sʲ ]. ^[3] Sequences of any consonant and /w/ are neutralized before /u/ where an offglide is always heard.

Phonotactics

Bilabial and velar consonants and /n/ may be followed by /w/ when initial. Other initial clusters include /pr/, /kr/, /hr/, /hw/, and /hn/ and final clusters are /w/ or /j/ followed by any consonant except for /h/ or /ŋ/. ^[3]

Pronouns

May River Iwam pronouns: ^{[4] : 282}

	sg	du	pl
1	ka/ani	kərər	kərəm
2	ki	kor	kom
3m	si	sor	səm
3f	sa

Noun classes

Like the Wogamus languages, May River Iwam has five noun classes: ^[4]

class	semantic category	prefix	example
class 1	male human referents	nu- (adult males); ru- (uninitiated or immature males)	yenkam nu-t man class.1-one ‘one man’
class 2	female human, children, or other animate referents	a(o)-	owi a-ois duck class.2-two ‘two ducks’
class 3	large objects	kwu-	ana kwu-(o)t hand class.3-one ‘a big hand’
class 4	small objects	ha-	ana ha-(o)t hand class.4-one ‘a small hand’
class 5	long objects	hwu-	ana hwu-(o)t hand class.5-one ‘a long hand’

As shown by the example above for ana ‘hand’, a noun can take on different classes depending on the physical characteristics being emphasized.

Verbal morphology

May river Iwam has four periodic tense suffixes: matutinal -yok, diurnal -harok, postmeridial -tep and nocturnal -wae. ^[5]

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words of Iwam are from Foley (2005) ^[6] and Laycock (1968), ^[7] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: ^[8]

gloss	Iwam
head	mu
ear	wun
eye	nu
nose	nomwos
tooth	piknu
tongue	kwane
leg	wərku; wɨrku
louse	ŋən; nɨn
dog	nwa
pig	hu
bird	owit
egg	yen
blood	ni
bone	keew; kew
skin	pəw
breast	muy
tree	pae(kap); paykap
man	kam; yen-kam
woman	wik
sun	pi
moon	pwan
water	op; o(p)
fire	pay
stone	siya
eat	(n)ai; (nd)ai
one	oe; ruk; su
two	ŋwis

Notes

1. May River Iwam at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
3. Laycock (1965 :115)
4. Foley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 197–432. ISBN   978-3-11-028642-7.
5. Foley (2018:286), Jacques, Guillaume (2023). "Periodic tense markers in the world's languages and their sources". Folia Linguistica. 57 (3): 539–562. doi:10.1515/flin-2023-2013.
6. Foley, W.A. "Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu basin". In Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. and Hide, R. editors, Papuan Pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. PL-572:109-144. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 2005.
7. Laycock, Donald C. 1968. Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics , 7 (1): 36-66.
8. Greenhill, Simon (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea" . Retrieved 2020-11-05.

External links

• Materials on Sepic Iwam are included in the open access Arthur Capell collections (AC1) held by Paradisec.

References

• Laycock, D.C. (1965). "Three Upper Sepik phonologies". Oceanic Linguistics. 4 (1/2). University of Hawai'i Press: 113–118. doi:10.2307/3622917. JSTOR   3622917.