Iwal language – Wikipedia

Austronesian language

Iwal (also called Kaiwa from Jabêm Kai Iwac “Iwac highlanders”) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 1,900 people from nine villages in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea (Cobb & Wroge 1990). Although it appears most closely related to the South Huon Gulf languages, it is the most conservative member of its subgroup.

The term Iwal is an endonym. Cognates in other related languages include Yabem Iwac and Numbami Yuwala.

Phonology[edit]

Iwal distinguishes 5 vowels and 16 consonants. Unlike most of its neighboring languages, it distinguishes the lateral /l/ from the trill /r/, the latter derived from earlier *s, as in aru from Proto-Oceanic (POc) *qasu ‘smoke’, ruru- from POc *susu ‘breast’, and ur from POc *qusan ‘rain’. Otherwise it appears to be the most phonologically conservative language in the South Huon Gulf chain (see Ross 1988:154–160). It has retained POc *t as /t/ (not /l/ or /y/) and POc *mw as /mw/ (not /my/ or /ny/), as in mwat ‘snake’ from POc *mwata.

Vowels (orthographic)[edit]

Consonants (orthographic)[edit]

Morphology[edit]

Pronouns and person markers[edit]

Free pronouns[edit]

Genitive pronouns[edit]

Possessive suffixes[edit]

Deictics[edit]

Iwal deictics correlate with first, second, and third person, each of which has a long and a short form. The latter appear to be anaphoric in usage. Deictics also serve to bracket relative clauses: ete/ebe … ok/nok/nik. By far the most common brackets are ebe … ok, but if the information in the clause is associated with either speaker or addressee, the brackets are likely to be ete … nik or ete … nok. Deictics may occur either in place of nouns or postposed to nouns, as in nalk etok ‘that earth/soil’.

• ete(n)ik, nik ‘near speaker’
• ete(n)ok, nok ‘near addressee’
• et(e)ok/eb(e)ok, ok ‘away from speaker or addressee’

Numerals[edit]

Traditional Iwal counting practices started with the digits of the left hand, then continued on the right hand, and then the feet to reach ’20’, which translates as ‘one person’. Higher numbers are multiples of ‘one person’. Nowadays, most counting above ‘5’ is done in Tok Pisin; in the Iwal New Testament, all numbers above ‘5’—except bage isgabu ’10’—are written with Arabic numerals and most likely read in Tok Pisin.

Numeral	Term	Gloss
1	dongke/ti	‘one’
2	ailu	‘two’
3	aitol	‘three’
4	aivat	‘four’
5	bage tavlu	‘hands half/part’
6	bage tavlu ano dongke	‘hands half right one’
7	bage tavlu ano ailu	‘hands half right two’
8	bage tavlu ano aitol	‘hands half right three’
9	bage tavlu ano aivat	‘hands half right four’
10	bage isgabu	‘hands both/pair’
15	bage isgabu be va tavlu	‘hands both and feet half’
20	buni amol ti	‘[?] person one’
100	buni amol bage tavlu	‘[?] person hands half [= ‘5’]’

Bioclassifying prefixes[edit]

One unusual feature of Iwal is a small set of bioclassifying prefixes: ei- (POc *kayu) for trees, wer- for edible greens, man(k)- (POc *manuk) for birds, ih- (POc *ikan) for fish.

• eivovo ‘canoe, canoe tree’
• eiweiwei ‘mango tree’ (POc *waiwai)
• weru ‘two-leaf (Tok Pisin tulip), Gnetum gnemon, a tree with paired edible leaves’
• weryambum ‘cabbage’
• mankbubu ‘pigeon’ (POc *bune)
• mankaruel ‘cassowary’ (POc *kasuari)
• ihtangir ‘Spanish mackerel’ (Tok Pisin tangir)

Word order[edit]

The basic word order in Iwal is SVO, with (mostly) prepositions, preposed genitives, postposed adjectives and relative clauses. Relative clauses are marked at both ends, and so are some prepositional phrases. Negatives come at the ends of the clauses they negate. There is also a class of deverbal resultatives that follow the main verb (and its object, if any).

	ei	ni-	tle	eivovo	butu
	3SG	FUT3SG	chop	canoe	down

‘He’ll chop down the canoe tree.’

	wakas	gi-	sov	nalk	aplo	gi-	le	ite
	root	3SG	descend	earth	inside	3SG	go	not

‘The roots did not go deep into the ground.’

	in-	di	gen	ete	ayeu	ga-	lgum	nik
	3PL	see	thing	DEM	1SG	1SG	do	DEM

‘They’ll see the things I have done.’

Verb serialization[edit]

Verb serialization is very common in Iwal. Within a serial verb construction, all verbs must agree in tense and the perfective marker is itself a serialized verb. Negatives come at the ends of the clauses they negate.

	ei	ni-	tle	butu	ni-	le	ni-	tak	ni-	kwai
	3SG	FUT3SG	chop	down	FUT3SG	go	FUT3SG	stay	FUT3SG	finish

‘He’ll chop it down and it’ll go and lie there.’

	atob	ei	ni-	mbweg	ni-	wei	nalk	ite
	then	3SG	FUT3SG	stay	FUT3SG	be.on	earth	not

‘Then he won’t sit on the ground.’

	gi-	dugdug	gi-	sov	gi-	le	gi-	tak
	3SG	roll	3SG	descend	3SG	go	3SG	stay

‘It rolled on down until it stopped.’

The primary source for this article is Bradshaw (2001), whose copyright holder is Joel Bradshaw, whose contributions here are licensed under the GFDL.

References[edit]

• Anon. (2004). Organised Phonology Data: Iwal (Kaiwa) language. Summer Institute of Linguistics. [1]
• Bradshaw, Joel (2001). “Iwal grammar essentials, with comparative notes.” In Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross, Darrell Tryon, eds., The boy from Bundaberg: Studies in Melanesian linguistics in honour of Tom Dutton, 51–74. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
• Cobb, Elyse, and Diane Wroge (1990). “Iwal transfer primer and teachers’ training course.” Read 25(2):40–44. Summer Institute of Linguistics.
• Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.