Wutung language

Last updated
Wutung
Native to Papua New Guinea
Region Sandaun Province
Ethnicity580 inhabitants of Wutung village (2010) [1]
Native speakers
? (2010) [1]
Skou
Dialects
Language codes
ISO 639-3 wut
Glottolog wutu1244
ELP Wutung
Coordinates: 2°36′31″S141°00′37″E / 2.60857°S 141.010203°E / -2.60857; 141.010203 (Wutung)
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Wutung (Udung), Musu and Nyao are dialects of a unnamed Skou language of Papua New Guinea. They are spoken in Bewani/Wutung Onei Rural LLG of Sandaun Province.

Contents

Sangke and the language of several other villages of the interior are reported to be similar, and may be dialects.

Tok Pisin and English are widely spoken in the area, and many Wutung people speak Indonesian too. [2] [3]

Location

Wutung village ( 2°36′31″S141°00′37″E / 2.60857°S 141.010203°E / -2.60857; 141.010203 (Wutung) ) is in Sandaun Province, on the northern coast and adjacent to the border with Indonesia. There are about 600 living in Wutung village, most of whom speak Wutung. Traditional Wutung land extends across the border to the Tami River, but while people garden plots in that expanse they all live in the village.

The nearby villages of Musu (12 km east on the coast, at 2°37′40″S141°06′06″E / 2.627641°S 141.10172°E / -2.627641; 141.10172 (Mushu) ) and Nyao Kono (about 12 km due south, at 2°48′28″S141°03′15″E / 2.80788°S 141.054278°E / -2.80788; 141.054278 (Yaukono) ) have closely related dialects which are named after their villages (Musu and Nyao). These three speech varieties are very closely related and are easily mutually intelligible.

Phonology

Wutung has fifteen consonants and seven vowels, six of which have nasal variants. This gives a total of 28 phonemes. Wutung also makes suprasegmental distinctions in tone.

Consonants

Wutung is one of the very few languages that lack velar consonants.

Labial Alveolar Palatal Glottal
Plosive or
Affricate
voiceless ptt͡ʃʔ
voiced bdd͡ʒ
Nasal mnɲ
Fricative fsh
Approximant wl

Vowels

Wutung has thirteen vowels, which includes seven oral and six nasal vowels. The table below shows the oral vowels. Each of these vowels, apart from the close-mid vowel ur /ɵ/, has an equivalent nasal vowel. The nasal vowels are indicated using the same symbol as the equivalent oral, but with a following ng, e.g. ca, 'pig' vs. cang 'blossom', the latter having the nasal vowel.

Front Central Back
Close i
/i/
u
/u/
Mid ey
/e/
ur
/ɵ/
o
/o/
Open e
/ɛ/
a
/a/

Pronouns

Wutung has a simple system of personal pronouns with three persons (1st, 2nd and 3rd), two numbers (singular and plural) and gender in the third person singular pronouns. The same set of pronouns are used for object and subject.

Iniewenetu
thoumeyouetu
heqeytheytetu
shecey

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References

  1. 1 2 Wutung at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. Marmion, Doug, Wutung: A Papuan language of the Sko Phylum spoken in Sandaun Province, PNG, Research Data Australia, doi:10.4225/72/56E824BE363A0 , retrieved 2022-08-31
  3. Marmion, Douglas E. (2010), Topics in the Phonology and Morphology of Wutung (PDF), Canberra: Australian National University, pp. 6, 13–15, archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-04-15