Kunimaipa language

Last updated
Kunimaipa
Region Papua New Guinea
Ethnicityincl. Biangai
Native speakers
(14,000 cited 1978–2000) [1]
Trans-New Guinea
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Variously:
kup   Kunimaipa
wer   Weri + Amam
big   Biangai
Glottolog kuni1267  Kunimaipa
weri1254  Weric
bian1252  Biangai

Kunimaipa is a Papuan language of New Guinea. The varieties are divergent, on the verge of being distinct languages, and have separate literary traditions.

Contents

Phonemes [2]

Consonants

Below is a chart of Kunimaipa consonants.

Table of consonant phonemes of Kunimaipa
Labial Coronal Velar Glottal
Nasal mnŋ
Plosive p bt dk g
Fricative vsh
Lateral approximant l
Trill r

Vowels

Morphophonemics [3]

Each stem that ends with a has three kinds of allomorphs: a, o, and e. Allomorphs end with a in a word finally or before a syllable with a. It is the most common ending. O ending appears before syllables with o, u, or ai. E ending appears before syllable with e or i. All of above holds true, except the ending syllable before -ma. In the general morphophonemic rule, ending a appears before syllable with a. In the case of -ma, o appears before the syllable with a. For example, the sentence so-ma, meaning ‘I will go.’

Words [4]

Non-suffixed

Word classes that are usually not suffixed are responses, exclamations, attention particles, vocative particles, conjunctions, names, and particles. Responses are short replies on a conversation; such as, kara 'okay', ee 'yes', gu 'yes', ev 'no'. Exclamations is usually occurs on sentence boundary; such as, auma 'surprise', au 'mistake', maize 'regret', and aip 'dislike'. Attention particles are only used on reported speech; such as, gui 'call to come', ae 'attention getter', and siu 'attention getter -close'. Vocative particles are beginning of addresses in sentence boundary; such as, engarim 'hey, woman', erom 'hey, man', engarohol 'hey, children', and guai 'uncle'. Conjunctions are links in "phrases, clauses, and sentences"; such as, mete 'and, but, then', ma 'or, and', povoza 'therefore', and ong 'but, then'. Names label person, place, days, and months; such as, made-ta-ka, 'on Monday', and pode-ta-ka, 'on Thursday'. Lastly, one particles that is used in introducing a quote is never suffixed, pata meaning 'reply'.

Suffixed or non-suffixed

Word classes including adjectives, pronouns, interrogative words, nouns, and verbs can be suffixed or non-suffixed depending on the meaning and usage. Some example of adjectives in Kunimaipa are tina 'good', goe 'small', and hori 'bad'. The Kunimaipa language has 7 pronouns, including ne, ni,pi, rei, rari, aru, and paru. Example of od interrogative words are taira and tai meaning 'what'. Noun is a large word class including words such as abana 'men', abanaro 'young men', no nai nai 'everything', and mapo 'all'.

Not Classified According to suffixation

The word classes that cannot be classified by suffixation are locations, temporals, adverbs, and auxiliaries.

Related Research Articles

Latin declension is the set of patterns according to which Latin words are declined, or have their endings altered to show grammatical case, number and gender. Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are declined, and a given pattern is called a declension. There are five declensions, which are numbered and grouped by ending and grammatical gender. Each noun follows one of the five declensions, but some irregular nouns have exceptions.

Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment. Its phrases are exclusively head-final and compound sentences are exclusively left-branching. Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person. Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned.

Menominee is an endangered Algonquian language spoken by the historic Menominee people of what is now northern Wisconsin in the United States. The federally recognized tribe has been working to encourage revival of use of the language by intensive classes locally and partnerships with universities. Most of the fluent speakers are elderly. Many of the people use English as their first language.

Tunica language Extinct language isolate of the Mississippi Valley

The Tunica or Luhchi Yoroni language is a language isolate that was spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley in the United States by Native American Tunica peoples. There are no native speakers of the Tunica language, but as of 2017, there are 32 second language speakers.

Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described in the oldest available grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam. Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th century grammar Naṉṉūl, which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam with some modifications.

Maidu language Extinct Maiduan language of northeastern California, US

Maidu, also Northeastern Maidu or Mountain Maidu, is an extinct Maiduan language spoken by Maidu peoples traditionally in the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Feather River river drainages. These river regions include such valleys in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains of California as: Indian Valley, American Valley, Butte Valley, and Big Meadows. Maidu may also refer to the related Konkow and Nisenan languages.

Tariana is an endangered Maipurean language spoken along the Vaupés River in Amazonas, Brazil by approximately 100 people. Another approximately 1,500 people in the upper and middle Vaupés River area identify themselves as ethnic Tariana but do not speak the language fluently.

Bulgarian grammar

Bulgarian grammar is the grammar of the Bulgarian language. Bulgarian is a South Slavic language that evolved from Old Church Slavonic—the written norm for the Slavic languages in the Middle Ages which derived from Proto-Slavic. Bulgarian is also a part of the Balkan sprachbund, which also includes Greek, Macedonian, Romanian, Albanian and the Torlakian dialect of Serbian. It shares with them several grammatical innovations that set it apart from most other Slavic languages, even other South Slavic languages. Among these are a sharp reduction in noun inflections—Bulgarian has lost the noun cases but has developed a definite article, which is suffixed at the end of words. In its verbal system, Bulgarian is set apart from most Slavic languages by the loss of the infinitive, the preservation of most of the complexities of the older conjugation system and the development of a complex evidential system to distinguish between witnessed and several kinds of non-witnessed information.

Tübatulabal is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language, traditionally spoken in Kern County, California, United States. It is the traditional language of the Tübatulabal, who have now shifted to English. The language originally had three main dialects: Bakalanchi, Pakanapul and Palegawan.

Tsez, also known as Dido is a Northeast Caucasian language with about 15,000 speakers spoken by the Tsez, a Muslim people in the mountainous Tsunta District of southwestern Dagestan in Russia. The name is said to derive from the Tsez word for "eagle", which is most likely a folk etymology. The name Dido is derived from the Georgian word დიდი, meaning "big".

Southern Sierra Miwok

Southern Sierra Miwok is a Utian language spoken by the Native American people called the Southern Sierra Miwok of Northern California. Southern Sierra Miwok is a member of the Miwok language family along with Lake Miwok, Coast Miwok (extinct), Saclan (extinct), Plains Miwok (extinct), Northern Sierra Miwok and Central Sierra Miwok. The Miwok languages are a part of the larger Penutian language stock. The original territory of the Southern Sierra Miwok people is similar to modern day Mariposa County, California. The Southern Sierra Miwok language is nearly extinct with only a few speakers existing today. However, as of 2012, an active revitalization program is underway.

Tarahumara language Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Mexico

The Tarahumara language is a Mexican indigenous language of the Uto-Aztecan language family spoken by around 70,000 Tarahumara (Rarámuri/Ralámuli) people in the state of Chihuahua, according to an estimate by the government of Mexico.

Aguaruna language

Aguaruna is an indigenous American language of the Chicham family spoken by the Aguaruna people in Northern Peru. According to Ethnologue, based on the 2007 Census, 53,400 people out of the 55,7000 ethnic group speak Aguaruna, making up almost the entire population. It is used vigorously in all domains of life, both written and oral. It is written with the Latin script. The literacy rate in Aguaruna is 60-90%. However, there are few monolingual speakers today; nearly all speakers also speak Spanish. The school system begins with Aguaruna, and as the students progress, Spanish is gradually added. There is a positive outlook and connotation in regard to bilingualism. 50 to 75% of the Aguaruna population are literate in Spanish. A modest dictionary of the language has been published.

The Nukak language is a language of uncertain classification, perhaps part of the macrofamily Puinave-Maku. It is very closely related to Kakwa.

Malecite-Passamaquoddy language Language

Malecite–Passamaquoddy is an endangered Algonquian language spoken by the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples along both sides of the border between Maine in the United States and New Brunswick, Canada. The language consists of two major dialects: Malecite, which is mainly spoken in the Saint John River Valley in New Brunswick; and Passamaquoddy, spoken mostly in the St. Croix River Valley of eastern Maine. However, the two dialects differ only slightly, mainly in accent. The indigenous people widely spoke Malecite-Passamaquoddy in these areas until around the post-World War II era when changes in the education system and increased marriage outside of the speech community caused a large decrease in the number of children who learned or regularly used the language. As a result, in both Canada and the U.S. today, there are only 600 speakers of both dialects, and most speakers are older adults. Although the majority of younger people cannot speak the language, there is growing interest in teaching the language in community classes and in some schools.

The Nhangu language (Nhaŋu), also Yan-nhaŋu (Jarnango) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Yan-nhaŋu people, inhabitants of the Crocodile Islands off the coast of Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia. The Yan-nhaŋu language belongs to the Yolŋu Matha language group of the Yolŋu people of Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The varieties of the two moieties are (a) Gorlpa and (b) Yan-nhangu.

Kiwai is a Papuan language, or languages, of southern Papua New Guinea. Dialects number 1,300 Kope, 700 Gibaio, 1,700 Urama, 700 Arigibi, 3,800 Coast, 1,000 Daru, 4,500 Island, 400 Doumori. Wurm and Hattori (1981) classify Arigibi as a separate language.

Iatmül language

Iatmul is the language of the Iatmul people, spoken around the Sepik River in the East Sepik Province, northern Papua New Guinea. The Iatmul, however, do not refer to their language by the term Iatmul, but call it gepmakudi.

The Kwaio language, or Koio, is spoken in the centre of Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands. It is spoken by about 13,000 people.

Nuaulu is a language indigenous to the island of Seram Island in Indonesia, and it is spoken by the Nuaulu people. The language is split into two dialects, a northern and a southern dialect, between which there a communication barrier. The dialect of Nuaulu referred to on this page is the southern dialect, as described in Bolton 1991.

References

  1. Kunimaipa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Weri + Amam at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Biangai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Geary, Elaine (1977). Kunimaipa grammar: morphonemics to discourse. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  3. Geary, Elaine (1977). Kunimaipa grammar: morphonemics to discourse. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  4. Geary, Elaine (1977). Kunimaipa grammar: morphonemics to discourse. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Further reading