Mekeo language

Mekeo
Spoken in	Papua New Guinea
Region	Central Province
Native speakers	19,000  (2003)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic Papuan Tip Central Papuan Tip Nuclear West-Central Papuan Tip Mekeo
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mek
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Mekeo is a language spoken in Papua New Guinea and had 19,000 speakers in 2003. It is an Oceanic language of the Papuan Tip Linkage.^[1] The two major villages that the language is spoken in are located in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea. These are named Ongofoina and Inauaisa.^[2] The language is also broken up into four dialects: East Mekeo; North West Mekeo; West Mekeo and North Mekeo. The standard dialect is East Mekeo.^[3] This main dialect is addressed throughout the article.

Phonology

Mekeo employs a relatively simple system of phonology which consists of 10 consonants and 5 vowels. The following tables identify both the consonants and vowels present in Mekeo.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Linguolabial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p		t	k	Ɂ
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Fricative		f	s
Lateral			l

Note that the table above displays the range of consonants used in East Mekeo which is classified as the standard dialect. North West Mekeo, West Mekeo and North Mekeo each have slightly different consonants included in their dialects.^[4][5]

Vowels

Mekeo has five vowels, shown on the table below:

	Front, Unrounded	Central, Unrounded	Back, Rounded
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Morphology

Pronoun and Person Markers

In Mekeo, personal pronouns primarily refer to humans, however the third person forms can also be used for animals and other objects as well. Mekeo uses a range of different pronouns for different situations. The following table shows all the main personal pronouns for East Mekeo. This includes unmarked, emphatic and reflexive personal pronouns. Note, that the emphatic pronouns are not common in East Mekeo as they compete with another more common topicaliser, au-ŋa. For example, the preferred form for the first person singular would be lau- au-ŋa.^[6] In the following table, 1, 2 and 3 indicate the person, SG and PL indicate whether the example is singular or plural and I and E stand for inclusive and exclusive.

	Unmarked	Emphatic	Reflexive
1SG	lau	lau-ŋa	Ɂifo-u
2SG	oi	oi-ŋa	Ɂifo-mu/Ɂifō
3SG	isa	isa-ŋa	Ɂifo-ŋa/Ɂifo-ŋa-mo
1PL.I	iɁa/isa	iɁ-ŋa/isa-ŋa	Ɂifo-Ɂa
1PL.E	lai	lai-ŋa	Ɂifo-mai
2PL	oi	oi-ŋa	Ɂifo-mi
3PL	isa	isa-ŋa	Ɂifo-i/Ɂifo-Ɂi

Examples:^[7] The following examples demonstrate the use of some of the above personal pronouns in context.

E-Ɂifo

3SG-self

S/he is one of a kind.

Maa-mu	umu	koà	lopia-ŋa
Eye-2SG	charcoal	likeness	beautiful
"Your eyes are beautiful, like charcoal."

Oi,	'nao	koa,	ioi-mu
2SG	European	likeness	same-2SG
"You are like a European."

ia	'e-lao	afu	ioi-na	e-lao
elsewhere	3SG-go	place	different-3SG	3SG-go
"He has gone elsewhere."

Footnotes

1. ^ Lewis 2009
2. ^ SIL 2004
3. ^ Chung 1995
4. ^ Jones 1998: p. 559
5. ^ Chung 1995, p. 9
6. ^ Jones 1998, p. 148
7. ^ Jones 1998, p. 149, 155

References

Chung, J.-S. (1995). Orthography paper for Mekeo Language. SIL international , 1-21.
Jones, A. A. (1998). Towards a lexicogrammar of mekeo. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Lewis, M. P. (2009). Mekeo. Retrieved October 17, 2011, from Ethnologue: Languages of the world: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mek
Organised Phonology Data: Mekeo Language. (2004). SIL International , 1-3.