- Mussau-Emira language
-
Mussau-Emira Spoken in Papua New Guinea Region Islands of Mussau and Emira (New Ireland Province) Native speakers 4,200 to 5,000 (date missing) Language family Austronesian- Malayo-Polynesian
- Oceanic
- St. Matthias
- Mussau-Emira
- St. Matthias
- Oceanic
Language codes ISO 639-3 emi This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. The Mussau-Emira language is spoken on the islands of Mussau and Emirau in the St. Matthias Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago.
Contents
Phonology
Phonemes
Consonants
Mussau-Emira distinguishes the following consonants.
Bilabial Alveolar Velar Nasal m n ŋ Plosive p b t k ɡ Fricative s Liquid l r Vowels
Front Central Back High i u Mid e o Low a Stress
In most words the primary stress falls on the penultimate vowel and secondary stresses fall on every second syllable preceding that. This is true of suffixed forms as well, as in níma 'hand', nimá-gi 'my hand'; níu 'coconut', niyúna 'its coconut'.
Morphology
Pronouns and person markers
Free pronouns
Person Singular Plural Dual Trial 1st person inclusive ita ita lua 1st person exclusive agi ami ami lua 2nd person io aŋa aŋa lua aŋa tolu 3rd person ia ila ila lua Subject prefixes
Prefixes mark the subjects of each verb:
- (agi) a-namanama 'I'm eating'
- (io) u-namanama 'you're (sing.) eating'
- (ia) e-namanama 'he's/she's eating'
Sample vocabulary
Numbers
- kateba
- qalua
- kotolu
- qaata
- qalima
- qaonomo
- qaitu
- qaoalu
- qasio
- kasagaula
References
- Blust, Robert (1984). "A Mussau vocabulary, with phonological notes." In Malcolm Ross, Jeff Siegel, Robert Blust, Michael A. Colburn, W. Seiler, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics, No. 23, 159-208. Series A-69. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Mussau Grammar Essentials by John and Marjo Brownie (Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages, volume 52). 2007. Ukarumpa: SIL.[1]
Categories:- Language articles with undated speaker data
- Oceanic languages
- Languages of New Ireland Province
- Malayo-Polynesian
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