Wiru language – Wikipedia

Posted on by
before-content-x4

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 after-content-x4

Language spoken in Papua New Guinea

Wiru or Witu is the language spoken by the Wiru people of Ialibu-Pangia District of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. The language has been described by Harland Kerr, a missionary who lived in the Wiru community for many years. Kerr’s work with the community produced a Wiru Bible translation and several unpublished dictionary manuscripts,[3] as well as Kerr’s Master’s thesis on the structure of Wiru verbs.[4]

There are a considerable number of resemblances with the Engan languages, suggesting Wiru might be a member of that family, but language contact has not been ruled out as the reason. Usher classifies it with the Teberan languages.

Pronouns[edit]

Trans–New Guinea–like pronouns are no 1sg (< *na) and ki-wi 2pl, ki-ta 2du (< *ki).

after-content-x4

Vocabulary[edit]

The following basic vocabulary words are from Franklin (1973,[5] 1975),[6] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]

gloss Wiru
head tobou
hair pine; píne
ear kabidi
eye lene
nose timini
tooth kime
tongue keke; keké
leg kawa
louse nomo; nomò
dog tue
pig kaì
bird ini; inì
egg mu̧
blood kamate
bone tono
skin kepene
breast adu
tree yomo; yomò
man ali
woman atoa; atòa
sun lou; loú
moon tokene
water ue; uè
fire toe
stone kue; kué
name ibini; ibíni
eat nakò; one ne nako
one odene
two takuta; ta kutà

Wiru has a general noun-modifying clause construction.[8] In this construction, a noun can be modified by a clause that immediately precedes it. The noun may, but need not, correspond to an argument of the modifying clause. Such constructions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relationships between clause and noun. The follow examples all use the same noun-modifying clause construction:

[No ka-k-u] tono tubea.

1sg stay-prs-1sg mountain big

‘The mountain I am on top of is big.’

piri-ki-ya.

lie-prs-2/3pl-hab

[Kia-nea karo pi-k-i] ail-aroa eida piri-ki-ya.

be.red-inf car lie-prs-2/3pl man-woman there lie-prs-2/3pl-hab

‘The people who own red cars live there.’

[Kenbra namolo no-k-o] ko ou.

Canberra first come-pst-1pl story say.1sg.fut

‘I’ll tell the story about the first time we came to Canberra.’

no-ka-l-e…

come-pst-ds-2/3pl…

[Toro pea skul ke poa-rok-o] oi no-ka-l-e…

1pl all school loc go-opt-1pl time come-pst-ds-2/3pl…

‘The time for all of us to go to school arrived…’

The noun-modifying clause construction imposes a falling tone on the head noun. That is, no matter what the lexical tone of the noun that is being modified is, it takes on a high-low tone pattern when it is modified in a noun-modifying clause construction.

Evolution[edit]

Wiru reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:[9]

  • ibi(ni) ‘name’ < *imbi
  • nomo ‘louse’ < *niman
  • laga ‘ashes’ < *la(ŋg,k)a
  • tokene ‘moon’ < *takVn[V]
  • mane ‘instructions, incantations’ < *mana
  • keda ‘heavy’ < *ke(nd,n)a
  • mo– ‘negative prefix’ < *ma-

References[edit]

  1. ^ Wiru at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ New Guinea World, Tua River
  3. ^ Kerr, Harland (13 March 2014). “Witumo Wituda Database”. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
  4. ^ Kerr, Harland (1967). A preliminary statement of Witu grammar: The syntactic role and structure of the verb (PDF) (MA). University of Hawaiʻi.
  5. ^ Franklin, K.J. “Other Language Groups in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas”. In Franklin, K. editor, The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea. C-26:261-278. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973. doi:10.15144/PL-C26.261
  6. ^ Franklin K.J. 1975. Comments on Proto-Engan. In S.A. Wurm, Ed. New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study: Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 263-275.
  7. ^ Greenhill, Simon (2016). “TransNewGuinea.org – database of the languages of New Guinea”. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  8. ^ Hendy, Caroline; Daniels, Don (2021). “The Wiru Noun-Modifying Clause Construction”. Oceanic Linguistics. 60 (1): 72–102. doi:10.1353/ol.2021.0002. S2CID 236779036.
  9. ^ Pawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). “The Trans New Guinea family”. 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. 21–196. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

  • Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Witu
  • Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Recordings – Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Recordings From the Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Photographs and Audiorecordings. MSS 477. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.


after-content-x4