Warembori language

Infobox Language
name=Warembori
nativename=Waremboivoro
pronunciation= [ˈwarɛmboiβoro]
region=Papua, Indonesia
speakers=~600
iso2=paa
iso3=wsa
familycolor=Papuan
fam1=Lower Mamberamo
script=Latin alphabet

Warembori (native name "Waremboivoro") is a moribund language spoken by about 600 people in river mouths on the north coast of Papua, Indonesia.

Classification

Classification is in dispute. Mark Donohue thinks it is related to Yoke (Pauwi), forming together the Lower Mamberamo family. On a 200 word list, they share 33%. Also there are some grammar similarities. According to Donohue, Warembori is heavily influenced by Austronesian languages to the west, in both vocabulary and grammar, Yoke is less influenced by them. Malcolm Ross thinks Warembori is a papuanised Austronesian language. He leaves Yoke unclassified due to lack of data, apparently referring to the fact that Donohue did not publish independent pronouns in Yoke. He did publish subject prefixes on verbs, which are very similar to Warembori, and the singular prefixes are also remarkably similar to two Kwerba family languages, namely Kauwera and Airoran, suggesting either borrowing or a distant relationship to Kwerba, though the Kwerba family shares almost no vocabulary with the Lower Mamberamo family. The Lower Mamberamo plural prefixes are similar to Austronesian, as are the plural object suffixes and, at least in Warembori, plural independent pronouns.

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

The sequence IPA|/nk/ is realized as IPA| [ŋɡ] .

The light voiced stops IPA|/b d/ lenite to IPA| [β r] between vowels within a word. The heavy stops do not lenite.

When a nasal is followed by a heavy plosive, it is lengthened, i.e. IPA|/mˀb/ [mːb] /nˀd/ [nːd] . When not followed by a stop, heavy nasals are long and preceded by a glottal closure, i.e. IPA|/ˀm/ [ʔmː] /ˀn/ [ʔnː] . Heavy consonants also attract stress (see below).

tress

Grammar

Writing system

Warembori is written in the Latin alphabet, with a spelling system based on Indonesian. It represents phonetic, rather than phonemic, distinctions. In particular:
*IPA|/b/ [β] is written v
*IPA|/d/ [r] is written r
*IPA|/nk/ [ŋɡ] is written ngg

References

*cite book |last=Donohue |first=Mark |authorlink=Mark Donohue (linguist) |year=1999 |title=Warembori |other=Languages of the World/Materials 341 |location=München |publisher=Lincom Europa