Bukawa language

Infobox Language
name=Bukawa
states=Papua New Guinea
region=Huon Gulf, Morobe Province
speakers=9,694 (1978 McElhanon)
familycolor=Austronesian
fam2=Malayo-Polynesian
fam3=Central-Eastern MP
fam4=Eastern MP
fam5=Oceanic
fam6=Western Oceanic
fam7=North New Guinea
fam8=Huon Gulf
fam9=North Huon Gulf
script=
iso2=
iso3=buk

Bukawa (also known as Bukaua, Kawac, Bugawac, Gawac) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 10,000 people (in 1978) on the coast of the Huon Gulf, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The most common spelling of the name in both community and government usage is Bukawa (Eckermann 2007:1), even though it comes from the Yabem language, which served as a church and school lingua franca in the coastal areas around the Gulf for most of the 20th century. This ethnonym, which now designates Bukawa-speakers in general, derives from the name of a prominent village on the Bugawac ('River Gawac') at Cape Arkona in the center of the north coast.

Ethnologue notes that 40% of Bukawa speakers are monolingual (or perhaps were in 1978). This claim is hard to credit unless one discounts both Tok Pisin, the national language of Papua New Guinea, and Yabem, the local Lutheran mission lingua franca. The anthropologist Ian Hogbin, who did fieldwork in the large Bukawa-speaking village of Busama on the south coast shortly after World War II, found that everyone was multilingual in three languages: Tok Pisin, Yabem, and their village language (Hogbin 1951).

Phonology

Vowels (orthographic)

Bukawa distinguishes the eight vowel qualities. The central mid vowel is rounded, while the low vowel is unrounded.

Morphology

Pronouns and person markers

Free pronouns

Names

Like most of the languages around the Huon Gulf, Bukawa has a system of birth-order names (Holzknecht 1989: 43-45). The seventh son is called "No Name": "se-mba" 'name-none'. Compare Numbami.

References

*ethnologue|code=buk
* Bradshaw, Joel (1997). "The population kaleidoscope: Another factor in the Melanesian diversity v. Polynesian homogeneity debate." "Journal of the Polynesian Society" 106:222-249.
* Eckermann, W. (2007). "A descriptive grammar of the Bukawa language of the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea." Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
* Hogbin, Ian (1951). "Transformation scene: The changing culture of a New Guinea village." London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
* Holzknecht, Susanne (1989). "The Markham languages of Papua New Guinea." Series C-115. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.