Monumbo language

Monumbo
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Bogia District, Madang Province
Native speakers	410 (2003) [1]
Language family	Torricelli – Sepik Coast Sepik Coast Monumbo languages Monumbo
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mxk
Glottolog	nucl1458
ELP	Monumbo

Monumbo is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea. There is an early description in German. ^[2] It is closely related to Lilau.

Phonology

Mambuwan consonants are: ^[3]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	q
	prenasalized	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Fricative	voiceless		s
	voiced		z		ɣ
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w	l	j

Mambuwan vowels are: ^[3]

Vowels

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

Grammar

Monumbo distinguishes five gender classes for singular and dual third-person pronouns, but only two gender classes (masculine and feminine) for third-person plural pronouns, a typologically unusual feature. There are five genders for the third-person pronoun, which are masculine, feminine, neutral, diminutive, and miscellaneous genders. ^[3]

Mambuwan subject agreement prefixes are: ^[3]

	sg	du	pl
1	a-	i-	i-
2	si- ~ su-	u-	u-
3M	ni- ~ nu-	ma-	gi-
3F	w-	wa-
3N	i-	ma-	bo-
3DIM	mi-	ba-
3OTHER	gi-	ga-

Mambuwan has a general oblique case marker –unum ~ -Cusum for nouns: ^[3]

ŋait-unum

fire-OBL

‘in/at/with/through fire’

Mambuwan also makes use of postpositions such as ŋaŋ ‘inside’: ^[3]

su ŋaŋ

water inside

‘in the water’

Mambuwan has highly complex verbal inflection. ^[3]

Nouns

Some Mambuwan nouns and their respective plural forms: ^[3]

gloss	singular	plural
‘mouth’	alakam	alakambo
‘leg’	sabo	sabo
‘thorn’	pupuk	pupuka
‘door’	kigi	kigika
‘stream’	su	suga
‘crab’	dɔra	dɔrage
‘name’	inu	inuore
‘beach’	lulu	luluore
‘coconut’	dɛ	dɛip
‘island’	mot	motiwe
‘hand’	naŋdabi	naŋdabian

References

1. Monumbo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Vormann, Franz and Scharfenberger, Wilhel. 1914. Die Monumbo-Sprache: Grammatik und Worterverzeichnis
3. 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.