Namia language

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Namia
Native to Papua New Guinea
Region Namea Rural LLG in Sandaun Province; East Sepik Province
Native speakers
6,000 (2007) [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 nnm
Glottolog nami1256
ELP Namia
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Namia (Namie, Nemia) is a Sepik language spoken in Namea Rural LLG, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. It goes by various names, such as Edawapi, Lujere, Yellow River. Language use is "vigorous" (Ethnologue).

Contents

In Sandaun Province, it is spoken in Ameni ( 3°58′54″S141°45′58″E / 3.981559°S 141.766186°E / -3.981559; 141.766186 (Ameni (Tipas)) ), Edwaki, Iwane ( 3°54′24″S141°45′20″E / 3.906643°S 141.755439°E / -3.906643; 141.755439 (Iwani) ), Lawo, Pabei ( 3°55′37″S141°46′35″E / 3.927006°S 141.776325°E / -3.927006; 141.776325 (Pabei) ), and Panewai villages in Namea Rural LLG, and in the Wiyari area. It is also spoken in 19 villages of Yellow River District in East Sepik Province. [2] [3]

Dialects

Namie dialect groups are: [4]

Phonology

Namia has only 7 phonemic consonants: [5]

Namia consonant inventory
LabialAlveolarVelar
Plosive p t k
Nasal m n
Tap r
Lateral l

Some analyses present /tʃ/ as an eighth phoneme, [6] although its distribution is predictable. [tʃ] and in some cases /r/ are positional variants of /t/, as described in the table below. [5]

Distribution of oral coronal phones in Namia
Environment PhonesExamples
AttestedIn variationUnattested
# _[t], [l][t~r]*[tʃ][tip] 'basket', [lip] 'ditch'
_ #[r], [l]*[t], *[tʃ][er] 'we two', [el] 'woman'
[i u] _[tʃ], [r], [l]*[t][titʃei] 'stone', [irei] 'digging stick', [ilei] 'name'
[e ə o a] _[r], [l]*[tʃ], *[t][ari] 'already', [alu] 'branch'
V _ C V[r], [l]*[tʃ], *[t][irno] 'face', [ilpok] 'storm front'
V C _ V[r], [l], [t]*[tʃ][amral] 'width', [amtou] 'red pandanus', [emomle] 'awaken'

Word-initially [r] may be heard in place of expected [t] in rapid speech if the previous word ends in a vowel. In no environment do more than three phonemes contrast, meaning that a fourth oral coronal /tʃ/ is not required. [tʃ] only occurs following high vowels /i/ or /u/ (e.g. [putʃwapu] 'lazy') where it can be seen as an allophone of /t/. In most environments only two phonemes contrast, suggesting that /r/ only recently diverged from /t/.

There are 6 vowels in Namia: [6]

FrontCentralBack
Close i u
Mid e ə o
Open a

The glides [j w] occur as allophones of /i u/, e.g. /iapu/ [japu] 'Sepik river', /uəla/ → [wəla] 'house'. [5]

Grammar

Unlike other Sepik languages, Namia has an inclusive-exclusive distinction for the first-person pronoun, which could possibly be due to diffusion from Torricelli languages. [6] Inclusive-exclusive first-person pronominal distinctions are also found in the Yuat languages and Grass languages.

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Foley (2005) [7] and Laycock (1968), [8] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: [9]

glossNamia
headmagu
earmak
eyeeno
nosenəmala; nɨmala
toothpinarɨ; pinarə
tonguelar
legliː; lipala
lousenanpeu
dogar; ara
piglwae
birdeyu
eggpuna
bloodnorə
bonelak
skinurarə
breastmu
treemi
manlu
womanere
sunwuluwa
moonyem
waterijo; ito
fireipi
stonelijei
nameilei
eat(t)
onetipia
twopəli

References

  1. ↑ Namia at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  3. ↑ United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
  4. ↑ Steer, Martin (2005). Languages of the Upper Sepik and Central New Guinea (PDF). Canberra: Australian National University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-10-22. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  5. 1 2 3 Feldpausch, Becky; Feldpausch, Tom (2009). Phonology essentials of the Namia language. Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  6. 1 2 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.
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ Laycock, Donald C. 1968. Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics , 7 (1): 36-66.
  9. ↑ Greenhill, Simon (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea" . Retrieved 2020-11-05.
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