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Sepik language spoken in Papua New Guinea
Namia (Namie, Nemia) is a
Sepik language spoken in
Namea Rural LLG ,
Sandaun Province ,
Papua New Guinea . It goes by various names, such as Edawapi, Lujere, Yellow River . Language use is "vigorous" (Ethnologue ).
In
Sandaun Province , it is spoken in Ameni (
3°58′54″S 141°45′58″E / 3.981559°S 141.766186°E / -3.981559; 141.766186 (Ameni (Tipas) ) ), Edwaki, Iwane (
3°54′24″S 141°45′20″E / 3.906643°S 141.755439°E / -3.906643; 141.755439 (Iwani ) ), Lawo, Pabei (
3°55′37″S 141°46′35″E / 3.927006°S 141.776325°E / -3.927006; 141.776325 (Pabei ) ), and Panewai villages in
Namea Rural LLG , and in the Wiyari area. It is also spoken in 19 villages of
Yellow River District in
East Sepik Province .
[2]
[3]
Dialects
Namie dialect groups are:
[4]
Ailuaki : spoken in Yegarapi (
3°52′14″S 141°48′02″E / 3.870583°S 141.800527°E / -3.870583; 141.800527 (Yegarapi ) ), Yaru (
3°51′18″S 141°48′09″E / 3.85512°S 141.802378°E / -3.85512; 141.802378 (Yaru ) ), and Norambalip (
3°48′51″S 141°49′42″E / 3.814045°S 141.828438°E / -3.814045; 141.828438 (Normbalip ) ) villages
Amani : spoken in Augwom (
3°59′34″S 141°43′01″E / 3.99286°S 141.716817°E / -3.99286; 141.716817 (Augwom ) ), Iwani (
3°54′24″S 141°45′20″E / 3.906643°S 141.755439°E / -3.906643; 141.755439 (Iwani ) ), Pabei (
3°55′37″S 141°46′35″E / 3.927006°S 141.776325°E / -3.927006; 141.776325 (Pabei ) ), Panewai, and Tipas (
3°58′54″S 141°45′58″E / 3.981559°S 141.766186°E / -3.981559; 141.766186 (Ameni (Tipas) ) ) villages
Wiari : spoken in Alai (
3°54′39″S 141°47′49″E / 3.910948°S 141.797074°E / -3.910948; 141.797074 (Alai ) ), Nami (
3°53′48″S 141°52′46″E / 3.896557°S 141.879322°E / -3.896557; 141.879322 (Nami ) ), Worikori (
3°55′25″S 141°52′45″E / 3.923558°S 141.879066°E / -3.923558; 141.879066 (Warkori ) ), Akwom (
3°56′19″S 141°49′59″E / 3.938724°S 141.833174°E / -3.938724; 141.833174 (Akwom ) ), and Naum (
3°55′25″S 141°50′00″E / 3.923731°S 141.833466°E / -3.923731; 141.833466 (Naum ) ) villages
Lawo : spoken in Mokwidami (
3°51′31″S 141°44′39″E / 3.858705°S 141.744059°E / -3.858705; 141.744059 (Mokwedami ) ), Mantopai (
3°42′31″S 141°41′55″E / 3.708668°S 141.698706°E / -3.708668; 141.698706 (Mantopai ) ), Yawari (
3°40′34″S 141°43′45″E / 3.676068°S 141.729295°E / -3.676068; 141.729295 (Yawari ) ), and Aiendami (
3°56′40″S 141°48′24″E / 3.944326°S 141.806744°E / -3.944326; 141.806744 (Luwawo (Aiendami) ) ) villages
Phonology
Namia has only 10 phonemic consonants:
[5]
Labial
Alveolar
Palatal
Velar
Nasal
m
n
Plosive
p
t
ʧ
k
Nasal
lateral
l
rhotic
r
Semivowel
w
j
/t/ and /r/ are in nearly perfect complementary distribution with each other.
There are 6 vowels in Namia:
[5]
Front
Central
Back
Close
i
u
Mid
e
ə
o
Open
a
Grammar
Unlike other
Sepik languages , Namia has an inclusive-exclusive distinction for the first-person pronoun, which could possibly be due to diffusion from
Torricelli languages .
[5] Inclusive-exclusive first-person pronominal distinctions are also found in the
Yuat languages and
Grass languages .
Vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary words are from Foley (2005)
[6] and Laycock (1968),
[7] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
[8]
gloss
Namia
head
magu
ear
mak
eye
eno
nose
nəmala; nɨmala
tooth
pinarɨ; pinarə
tongue
lar
leg
liː; lipala
louse
nanpeu
dog
ar; ara
pig
lwae
bird
eyu
egg
puna
blood
norə
bone
lak
skin
urarə
breast
mu
tree
mi
man
lu
woman
ere
sun
wuluwa
moon
yem
water
ijo; ito
fire
ipi
stone
lijei
name
ilei
eat
(t)
one
tipia
two
pəli
References
^
Namia at
Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019).
"Papua New Guinea languages" .
Ethnologue : Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas:
SIL International .
^ United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018).
"Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup" . Humanitarian Data Exchange . 1.31.9.
^ Steer, Martin (2005).
Languages of the Upper Sepik and Central New Guinea (PDF) . Canberra: Australian National University.
^
a
b
c
Foley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide . The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 197–432.
ISBN
978-3-11-028642-7 .
^ Foley, W.A. "Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu basin". In Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. and Hide, R. editors, Papuan Pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples . PL-572:109-144. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 2005.
^
Laycock, Donald C. 1968. Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea.
Oceanic Linguistics , 7 (1): 36-66.
^ Greenhill, Simon (2016).
"TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea" . Retrieved 2020-11-05 .
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