Ram languages

Ram
Geographic distribution	central Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea
Linguistic classification	Sepik Upper Sepik Ram
Subdivisions	Karawa Pouye Awtuw
Language codes
Glottolog	ramm1241
The Sepik languages as classified by Foley (2018)

The Ram languages are a small group of 3 languages spoken in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. They are spoken directly to the northeast of the Yellow River languages and directly to the south of the Wapei languages, both of which are also Sepik groups. Ram is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group.

The languages are, ^[1]

• Awtuw
• Karawa–Pouye
  • Karawa
  • Pouye (Bouye)

They are classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea.

Awtuw is the best documented Ram language.

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Ram are: ^[2]

I	*wan	we two	(*na-n)	we	*na-m
thou	*yɨ-n	you two	(*yɨ-n/*a-n)	you	*yɨ-m/*a-m
he	*ra (*atə-)	they two	(*ra-p, *atə-)	they	(*ra-m, *atə-m)
she	(*ta-i)

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Laycock (1968) ^[3] and Foley (2005), ^[4] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database. ^[5]

The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. nipia, nipikəm for “louse”) or not (e.g. nəpay, aukwə for “dog”).

gloss	Awtuw	Karawa	Pouye
head	makəlak	moulaka	nouraka
ear	maːna; nane	maklaka	maroalaka
eye	new; nü	noulaka	nowar
nose	witil; wutil	waklaka	wolokə
tooth	pilak; piylake	pilaka	piyapa
tongue	lale; laːlə	laləpi	laləmu
leg	riiwe; riwe	lalə	lalə
louse	nin	nipia	nipikəm
dog	piːrən; piyren	nəpay	aukwə
pig	yaw
bird	yi	awra	yio
egg	paŋkə; wate	waːtə	warə
blood	aipi	eipi	aywi
bone	lake; lakər	lakə	lakə
skin	yai	mouwil	nəpyei
breast	muy; mwi	məy	muy
tree	tau; taw	tau	tau
man	rame; ramiyan	yaŋkai	lamo
woman	taləran	telou	tʔlum
sun	mæy; may	may	taliyə
moon	yelmek; yilmake	yalma	yalma
water	yiw; yüw	you	you
fire	tapo; tapwo	tapo	tapo
stone	til	tidi	tɨl
name	yenyiy
eat	ra
one	naydowo
two	yikir	yikəramo	yikən

Morphology

Awtuw (Feldman 1983 ^[6] ) and Pouye present many morphological commonalities: they share cognate prefixes in six out of eight prefixal slots, but on the other hand they present very little cognate material in their suffixal chain. ^[7]

Ram languages have a rich verbal morphology, which can encode unusual categories such as celerative -imya 'quickly', grammaticalized from the verb imya 'run' as in (1), ^[8] periodic tense and simulative.

(1)

Rey

3sg:MASC

aeye

food

rokr’-imy’-e.

cook-CELER- PST

Rey aeye rokr’-imy’-e.

3sg:MASC food cook-CELER-PST

'He cooked the food quickly.' (Feldman 1983: 122–123)

References

1. Ram, New Guinea World
2. Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In Andrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66. doi:10.15144/PL-572. ISBN   0858835622. OCLC   67292782..
3. Laycock, Donald C. 1968. Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics , 7 (1): 36-66.
4. 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.
5. Greenhill, Simon (2016). "TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea" . Retrieved 2020-11-05.
6. Feldman, Harry (1983). A grammar of Awtuw (PhD thesis). Australian National University. doi: 10.25911/5D723CE831842 . hdl: 1885/132945 .
7. Jacques, Guillaume (2024). "Essai de comparaison de la morphologie verbale des langues ram (awtuw et pouye), famille sepik". Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris . 118 (1): 275–288. doi:10.2143/BSL.118.1.3292785.
8. Jacques, Guillaume (2024). "Celerative: the encoding of speed in verbal morphology". STUF. 77 (2): 261–282. doi:10.1515/stuf-2024-2006.