Mussau-Emira language
| Mussau-Emira | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Islands of Mussau and Emira (New Ireland Province) |
Native speakers | 5,000 (2003)[1] |
|
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
emi |
| Glottolog |
muss1246[2] |
The Mussau-Emira language is spoken on the islands of Mussau and Emirau in the St. Matthias Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago.
Phonology
Phonemes
Consonants
Mussau-Emira distinguishes the following consonants.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ |
| Plosive | p b | t | k ɡ |
| Fricative | s | ||
| Liquid | l r |
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
Stress
In most words the primary stress falls on the penultimate vowel and secondary stresses fall on every second syllable preceding that. This is true of suffixed forms as well, as in níma 'hand', nimá-gi 'my hand'; níu 'coconut', niyúna 'its coconut'.
Morphology
Pronouns and person markers
Free pronouns
| Person | Singular | Plural | Dual | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person inclusive | ita | ita lua | ||
| 1st person exclusive | agi | ami | ami lua | |
| 2nd person | io | aŋa | aŋa lua | aŋa tolu |
| 3rd person | ia | ila | ila lua | |
Subject prefixes
Prefixes mark the subjects of each verb:
- (agi) a-namanama 'I'm eating'
- (io) u-namanama 'you're (sing.) eating'
- (ia) e-namanama 'he's/she's eating'
Sample vocabulary
Numbers
- kateba
- qalua
- kotolu
- qaata
- qalima
- qaonomo
- qaitu
- qaoalu
- qasio
- kasagaula
References
- ↑ Mussau-Emira at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Mussau-Emira". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- Blust, Robert (1984). "A Mussau vocabulary, with phonological notes." In Malcolm Ross, Jeff Siegel, Robert Blust, Michael A. Colburn, W. Seiler, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics, No. 23, 159-208. Series A-69. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Mussau Grammar Essentials by John and Marjo Brownie (Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages, volume 52). 2007. Ukarumpa: SIL.
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