Melpa language

Melpa
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Mount Hagen District, Western Highlands Province
Native speakers	(130,000 cited 1991) [1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Chimbu–Wahgi Hagen Melpa
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	med
Glottolog	melp1238

Melpa (Meldpa, Mbowamb) 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. It is spoken by the Kawelka people ^[2] and other related tribes.

Melpa is a pandanus language used during karuka harvests. ^[3] Melpa has a velar lateral, written as a double-barred el (Ⱡ, ⱡ). Melpa is notable for its binary counting system. A dictionary of Melpa has been compiled by Stewart, Strathern and Trantow (2011). ^[4]

Phonology

Note: the descriptions of these sounds ^[5] is not clear, so the conversion to IPA below may not be accurate.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m	n̪	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪	t		k
	prenasalized	mb	n̪d̪	nd		ŋɡ
Rhotic				ɾ
Lateral			ɮ̪ ⟨l⟩	ɺd?⟨ld⟩		ʟ̝ ⟨gl, ⱡ⟩
Semivowel		w			j

Ladefoged analyzes the laterals instead as /l̪t̪/,/l/,/ʟ/, and the rhotic as /ɹ/. ^[6]

Plosives and laterals are voiceless in word-final position.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		ɯ ⟨ʉ⟩, u
Near-high	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Numeral system

Numeral	Melpa	Literal meaning
1	tenda	"one"
2	ragl	"two"
3	ragltika	"two-one"
4	tembokak	"four"
5	pemp ti gul	"one past four"
6	pemp ragl gul	"two past four"
7	pemp ragltika gul	"two-one past four"
8	engakl	"eight"
9	pemp ti pip	"one past eight"
10	pemp ragl pip	"two past eight"

Media

Temboka, a dialect of Melpa, is the native language of the Ganiga tribe, ^[7] who featured prominently in the Highlands Trilogy of documentaries by Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly ( First Contact , Joe Leahy's Neighbours, and Black Harvest ).

The documentary Ongka's Big Moka also has Melpa dialogue.

References

1. Melpa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Strathern, Andrew (1972). One Father, One Blood: Descent and group structure among the Melpa people. Canberra: Australian National University, Research School of Social Sciences. ISBN   978-0-7081-0699-0.
3. Franklin, Karl J. (September 1972). "A Ritual Pandanus Language of New Guinea". Oceania. 43 (1): 66–76. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1972.tb01197.x. OCLC   883021898.
4. Stewart, Pamela J., Andrew Strathern and Jürgen Trantow. 2011. Melpa-German-English Dictionary. Pittsburgh: University Library System.
5. Stucky et al. 1990 Melpa Phonology
6. Melpa laterals
7. Connolly, Bob (14 February 2017). "Filmmaker Bob Connolly returns to PNG 25 years after 'Black Harvest'". The Australian Financial Review . Retrieved 25 January 2017.

External links

• Kay Owens. "The Work of Glendon Lean on the Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania", section "The Melpa Counting System". Mathematics Education Research Journal vol. 13 (April 2001), doi : 10.1007/BF03217098